Crossing Lines
by AnimeFan202
Summary: Next Generation story. After all the hardships the original characters faced, they would expect that raising their children should be easy...right?  Sort of a sequel to WSIWGTBE, but it can be read without having read that one first...
1. Character Reference Sheet

**Okay, to start this off I would just like to say that THIS IS NOT THE FIRST CHAPTER!**

**But it's not just an author note either. ****J**

**Anyone who read the summary knows that this is a Next Generation story. I've read a few of them myself. For anyone who hasn't, here's how it usually works. There tend to be lots of Ocs and eventually a reader will read someone's name and have no idea who they are.**

**This is my Character Reference Sheet. The point of this sheet is to prevent that moment.**

**As a new character gets introduced they will get their own little column on this page. As you learn more about the character, things will be added.**

**The last piece of news… There will be many, many Ocs. I've got most of them created already, but if you want to create your own, send me a PM. I just need to know the name, the appearance, personality… You can put down other things like preferred parents or whatever, but I've already got the couples all figured out so you'll have to get that list from me if you want to go that far. The only warning I give- The more specific you make your Ocs, the higher the chance is that they'll somehow mess with the storyline plots/characters I've already created and I won't be able to use them. But if you do go to the trouble of making one I'll try to add it in.**

**Happy Reading! **

Name: _Koichi Uchiha_

First Appearance: Prologue

Status: The third of five, soon to be six, kids.

Appearance: On the short side, short, black hair (longer than chin-length, shorter than shoulder-length) green eyes

Age:12

Birthday: April 18

Parents: Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha

Personality: Slightly abrasive, especially so when compared to her twin brother, honest, can also be slightly naïve at times

Fun Facts: She is so far Sasuke's only daughter. She and Koji are so far the only two children to have inherited Sakura's green eyes. Koichi has a somewhat strained relationship with her mother. She is the first-born twin. (Hence the name) Main character.

…

Name: _Koji Uchiha_

First Appearance: Prologue

Status:He is the fourth of five, soon to be six, kids.

Appearance: Pretty much the same as Koichi (they are twins) only with shorter hair. Plus he's just the slightest bit taller though the difference is hardly recognizable.

Age:12

Birthday: April 18

Parents: Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha

Personality:He is most commonly referred to as the calmer, quieter, gentler twin. Though they are very different he usually stands up for and agrees with Koichi.

Fun Facts:Hopes to one day be a medic ninja like his mother. The other child to inherit Sakura's green eyes. Has a strained relationship with his father.

Second-born twin. (Hence the name)

…

Name: _Hayate Uchiha_

First Appearance: Prologue

Status:The fifth of five, soon to be six, kids

Appearance: Hayate has the stature (and often the grace) of a toddler. He has big dark brown eyes and black hair that always seems to be in his eyes.

Age:5

Birthday: September 4

Parents: Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha

Personality: Curious (often mistaken for being nosy) and surprisingly perceptive for being just five.

Fun Facts: Currently the youngest child of the new generation. Yearns for his father's attention just as Sasuke once strived to get his dad's attention. His favorite sibling is Koichi though she doesn't always seem nearly as fond of him.

…

Name: _Shizuku Hatake_

First Appearance: Chapter One

Status: Only child

Appearance: Messy silver-gray hair, brown eyes, not exactly short but uses high-heeled sandals to look taller- full description in **chapter one**

Age: 19

Birthday: May 4

Parents: Kakashi and Anko Hatake

Personality: Peppy, slightly oblivious, inherited Kakashi and Anko's bad timing- personality often undermines her talents as a ninja- this would be an advantage if she could just realize it was happening…

Fun Facts: Oldest child of new generation. Wishes she had younger siblings-makes do with Sasuke's children. In love with Ryoma- only one who calls him Ryo-chan

…

Name: _Ryoma Uchiha_

First Appearance: Chapter One

Status: Only child, but often like Sasuke's children's oldest brother

Appearance: short black hair, brown eyes, taller than Sasuke, shorter than Itachi

Age: 18 (but closer to 17- he and Shizuku are a little more than a year apart)

Birthday: August 10

Parents: Itachi and Yugao Uchiha

Personality: Calm, but caring. He is a private person which can make him pretty quiet, but he has a good heart and has always looked after his younger cousins like they were his own brothers and sister. Not as intense as he could be, especially for someone of his skill.

Fun Facts: Currently has the highest ninja ranking of all the new generation children. Has a strained relationship with Sasuke. (Ryoma reminds Sasuke of a younger Itachi, and we all saw that disaster go down.) Because of this he can relate well with both Koji and Koichi who are the only other two who make it easy to pinpoint a difficult relationship with either of their parents. In love with Shizuku though he's much more discreet about it. Ryoma is the only one who calls her Zuku-chan.

…

Name: _Kaki Uchiha_

First Appearance: Chapter One

Status: First of five, soon to be six children

Appearance: Nearly exactly like Sasuke at 16 (described by Koichi as having a more pinched look to his face)

Age: 16

Birthday: March 23

Parents: Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha

Personality: According to Koichi he plays the role of annoying older brother remarkably well, but in his eyes she's just as talented at being the annoying little sister. Nearly the exact opposite of Ryoma- Kaki is very intense and ambitious. He has very high amounts of self-esteem and self-confidence. His teachers prided him on having strong leadership skills. Koichi sees him as bossy.

Fun Facts: The oldest of Sasuke and Sakura's children. Looks up to Ryoma-like Koichi it's easier for him to see someone's worst qualities therefore it is rare that he would really look up to anyone. (It is highly possible that what he really looks up to is Ryoma's skill as a ninja.) They get along well enough, but Kaki often clashes with both of his parents due to all three having very forward personalities.

…

Name: _Tora Uchiha_

First Appearance: Chapter One

Status: Second of five, soon to be six children

Appearance: He basically has Sakura's hair, only it's black. Dull, gray eyes. Shorter than Kaki, taller than Koji and Koichi. (Kaki's Sasuke's height) Neither of the two older brothers dress in ways that make them stand out. Typical ninja attire, but Kaki favors browns while Tora favors grays and the occasional bright red patch.

Age: 15 (A very young fifteen, closer to fourteen)

Birthday: June 20

Parents: Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha

Personality: Tries to act tougher than he really is. But anyone who takes the time to look can easily tell that he's really kind at heart.

Fun Facts: Sasuke and Sakura's second child. He was the last child born before Hinata and Naruto's son died- the death that slowed down Sasuke and Sakura having kids. Kaki is his role model. His hobby is painting. Has the strongest grasp of fire techniques in the family. (Of the five children.)

…

Name: _Han Shiranui _

First Appearance: Chapter One

Status: Only child/Illegitimate child

Appearance: Average height, brown eyes, long brown hair pulled back in ponytail-resembles Itachi's. Wears a replica of Shikamaru's pre-shippuden outfit.

Age: 12

Birthday: January 28

Parents: Genma Shiranui and Ryelle Tegou

Personality: Likes animals more than people (they scare him) and tries to copy Shikamaru's attitude.

Fun Facts: Has a kekkei genkai which enables him to ignite (literally, burst into flame). However, he can't control it and usually ends up burning himself. It ignites on its own when he's angry or scared. Due to this his chakra control isn't the greatest. (The kekkei genkai literally burns through his chakra pathways.)

**This OC belongs to: **_Elves are Overrated_

…

Name: _Ryelle Tegou_

First Appearance: Not sure yet

Status: Han Shiranui's mother

Appearance: Hasn't been seen yet

Age:

Birthday:

Parents: Not important/ she _is_ one of the parents

Personality: Will be explained later

Fun Facts: Han's mother. Kirigakure kunoichi. Han inherited his kekkei genkai from her, but it's not exactly the same. He got a sort of mutated form that will be explained later. So far, Han is my favorite character, but Ryelle is my least favorite.

**This OC belongs to: **_Elves are overrated_

…

Name: _SukoshiKitsune Uzumaki, "Kit-chan"_

First Appearance: Chapter One

Status: Third of four

Appearance: Kit looks remarkably like Kushina only with Naruto's eyes. (she did not inherit his whisker marks.)

Age: 12

Birthday: April 2

Parents: Naruto and Hinata Uzumaki

Personality: Bright and cheery. A bit like Shizuku, only she can be surprisingly deep. Unfortunately she didn't get any of her father's ambition passed down.

Fun Facts: Her name translates to 'little fox'. She was supposed to be born on April Fools day, but was born a couple minutes after midnight. She is Koichi's best friend.

…

Name: _Hikuro Konjou _

First Appearance: Chapter Two

Status: Only child

Appearance: black hair that's long enough to be tied back, pale skin, sharp black eyes, average height

Age: 12

Birthday: September 9

Parents: Yaseihi and Kurochi Konjou

Personality: Hikuro is very alert, but has a laid-back personality. He's a bit of a loner, but good at heart. Not affected by expectations and loves physical battles though he is very quiet

Fun Facts: Hikuro is rarely home, he's taken to sitting atop the fourth Hokage's statue, watching the village below him

**This OC belongs to: **_Storm0Wolf_

…

Name: Kazuki Ryokaru

First Appearance: Chapter Two

Status: Only child

Appearance: Messy, light brown hair, light brown eyes

Age: 12

Birthday: March 19

Parents: Takao and Susumu Ryokaru

Personality: Carefree, flexible

Fun Facts: Though it seems like this OC is just careless, the things like the inside-out clothes and the different colored shoes are done on purpose

**This OC belongs to: **_duckielover151 _

…

Name: Madoka Inuzuka

First Appearance: Chapter Two

Status: Only child

Appearance: Long, dark brown hair, pulled back in ponytail, dark brown eyes

Age: 12

Birthday: February 9

Parents: Kiba and Ino Inuzuka

Personality: A bit skittish and girly, she tends to avoid conflict, didn't inherit any of either of her parents' explosive personalities.

Fun Facts: Has a crush on Koji, her nails are always some shade of pink or purple, so far the only Inuzuka not to have a dog (or any animal for that matter) by her side as a companion. She's not fond of animals or bugs. Her name means 'flower'

…

Name: Teito Hyuga

First Appearance: Chapter Two

Status: Only child

Appearance: Much like Neji when he was 12/13 He's a little paler, and his face is a little more pointed, plus his hair is a lighter shade of brown.

Age: 11

Birthday: August 8

Parents: Neji and Tenten Hyuga

Personality: Fairly stuck-up. He's used to being exceptional at just about everything which makes him pretty arrogant. It doesn't help that, like Koichi, he has a natural talent for starting arguments. He's reluctant about taking other's advice as he's also used to being right. He won't always be such an unlikable character; at the moment he's as uninformed and bitter as Neji used to be.

Fun Facts: He is the only one in his class to have graduated early. He is Kit's cousin, and has a surprising amount of respect for her considering he doesn't have too much for anyone else and Kit isn't exactly the type he'd get along with.

…

Name: Shizu Aburame

First Appearance: Chapter Two

Status: First of two

Appearance: Black hair, kind black eyes, simple clothing (t-shirt and shorts)

Age: 12

Birthday: January 18

Parents: Shino and Noriko Aburame **( Noriko is also my OC, but there's a good chance she'll never appear- anything you need to know about her will be discussed in later chapters. Really, she isn't too important)**

Personality: Quiet, comes off as a bit soft. He's a very agreeable person and always seems relaxed. It's very rare to see him angry, it's more likely he'll get upset than angry. Also one to avoid arguments.

Fun Facts: Originally, he and Han shared the same birthday. (I realized this when _Elves are Overrated _sent in the OC description for Han) It was changed at the last minute when I decided I didn't want them to share a birthday. (No real reason, just 'cause)

…

Name: Poppi Sarutobi

First Appearance: Chapter Three

Status: Only child

Appearance: Long black hair that comes down to spiky points just past the middle of her back. Bangs do the same- almost cover her eyes. Brown eyes. (Basically, she looks a lot like her father.) Tall, tan skin

Age: 17

Birthday: January 3 **(As far as I know, Kurenai and Asuma's child has not been born yet. I'm going off what I know. It's been rumored that it will be a girl. My version of her was set to be a few months older than Kaki. I know this messes up the canon timeline, but things changed a little. In the English dub at least, Ino gave Asuma poppy seeds to give to Kurenai. That's where she gets her name.) **

Parents: Asuma and Kurenai Sarutobi **(Yuhi? I doubt Kurenai ever changed her last name, but I'm putting her down as a Sarutobi.)**

Personality: Quiet, somber

Fun Facts: Her eyes are always a little downcast, and she never seems to really show much of an interest in anything, but she's dating Kaki. The actual Japanese translation of 'poppy' is 'popi', but I changed it to having two P's because I felt it looked better. J

...

Name: Etsumi Uzumaki

First Appearance: Not sure yet

Status: Fourth of four

Appearance: to be discussed later

Age: 11

Birthday: July 17

Parents: Naruto and Hinata Uzumaki

Personality: She's a serious person, a little rebellious

Fun Facts: I don't have any yet. She hasn't even really been introduced yet. She won't become important until later, after the Chunin Exams which still won't be for a while.

…

Name: Kemushi Aburame

She is Shizu's younger sister. As she won't be all that important to the story, not much is known.

...

Name: Kovu

First Appearance: Chapter Seven (mentioned briefly in an earlier chapter)

Status: Only child

Appearance: Light brown eyes and red hair that lies down flat. Relatively tall and broad-shouldered. I wouldn't call him buff per se (ha ha) but he's a little more... square (wide?) than the rest of my characters.

Age: 16

Birthday: June 26

Parents: Gaara and Matsuri (As far as I know, neither of them have surnames, so I didn't give Kovu one either.)

Personality: He's very calm, cool, and collected. He often comes off as a little superior. (Please keep in mind that Koichi is biased. Some of his rougher qualities will often be glossed over as long as she's narrating.)

Fun Facts: I'm not sure if it's so much a fun fact as a topic of interest that he's the Kazekage's only son. That will come into play later. Also, I am well aware that the name Kovu isn't Japanese. There's a somewhat embarrassing story that you're free to ask me about as to how he got his name. But I've been thinking about him and referring to him in my mind as 'Kovu' for so long that that's not going to change. Sorry if that bothers you.


	2. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

The shuriken embedded themselves into the target with three satisfactory 'fwunk's. I couldn't help grinning. They had joined seven others. That made ten out of ten.

I turned to my brother who had remained silent though he was watching.

"What?" I prompted. "Not even a 'nice' or a 'good job'?"

Koji's smile was patronizing yet genuine at the same time. "We're supposed to graduate tomorrow," he said. "This stuff is all basic. I'd be worried if you _couldn't_ do any of this."

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the tree where I'd positioned my target, getting ready to pull out another batch of weapons. He was right of course. But my aim during target practice tended to be give or take on a good day. I had everything else down though.

Koji wasn't training. He was sitting on the back porch, watching me.

Before I could take out another handful of shuriken the back door slid open, and Hayate came out, closing the door behind him. He sat beside Koji, but who knew how long that would last. I could already see the 'I'm bored' about to come out of his mouth. No, there would be no more training today.

He'd already gotten the lecture about disturbing any of his older siblings while they were training. (Sure, this was just review but still…)

I supposed I couldn't really berate him this time though. After all, I'd come outside to escape the Great Discussion occurring inside as well.

The Great Discussion, alternately known as the Naming, happened whenever my mother got pregnant. They said we were allowed to join the discussion but so far no one had taken them up on the offer. Leave it up to my parents to make naming a baby seem so personal. According to Grandpa Kakashi they liked to change the name about a week or so before the baby was actually born anyway. This doesn't surprise me even though I've only been alive for one of these times.

Despite having five kids they didn't seem to be very good at the whole naming process.

I have two older brothers. Kaki and Tora in that order. Both are traditional Uchiha names. (Kaki means fire; Tora means tiger.) Then there's Koji and me. My name is Koichi.

Koichi means first-born son. I am not a boy. And overall I am not the first born. Well, I suppose I am in one aspect. I am the older twin. Koji means second-born son.

Which leaves Hayate. Seriously, I can't be the only one who thinks it's a little strange that Mom and Dad named their son after Aunt Yugao's dead boyfriend, right? I would think that that would be especially awkward since she married Uncle Itachi. But no one else seems to think there's anything strange about this. They said it was to honor someone they knew who'd died in battle. But I got the details. He was only an exam proctor to them. Oh well. Maybe I'm just a step behind. (Though personally, I think I'm a step ahead.)

Well, either way I hope this kid turns out more fortunate in the name department than his predecessors.

Make of it what you will, but that's as deep as my worry for my unborn sibling goes. What I'm really hoping is that this will be my mother's last child though it isn't very likely.

Originally, the plan was for my dad to have as many kids as possible because he wanted to 'rebuild his clan' or however he phrased it. Then it wasn't discovered that Uncle Itachi wasn't really the evil bastard everyone thought he was. (True, he isn't helping out too much with the whole rebuilding process, but it managed to ease Dad's nerves a little, knowing he wouldn't have to do the whole thing himself.)

I'm actually pretty lucky there are only five of us. It may not look it, but fate has been on our side. (Our side being the side of myself and my siblings.)

My parents have had a few eye-openers… The first time my mother tried to have a baby she had a miscarriage. (Let me just say that in my eyes they were way too young to be having kids anyway.) Then Uncle Naruto and Aunt Hinata's first child died in some freak accident when he was just three. No one ever talks about it.

I, however awful the death was, am grateful to that child. It cleared my dad's head a little and slowed down his emotion that I'm not sure has a name. This unnamed emotion caused him to be hell-bent on wanting to all but mass produce children. (Thank you, dead child.)

Some would think that I'd want a sister. These people are very wrong. I grew up surrounded by boys. I know how to act around boys. I've always just been one of the boys. I don't get along well with girls. It isn't uncommon for me to listen to their wants and obsessions and find them petty or stupid. (Or inferior if I'm not in the greatest of moods.) Perhaps the reason my mother and I aren't as close as we could be is because there is no doubt in my mind (or Grandpa Kakashi's memory) that my mother was one of these girls. Besides, I know it's not just me. The stats don't lie, and girls have acquired the highest percentage of students who fail the academy test.

I can hear movement inside. This signals that for now the Discussion is over and we're free to return.

The three of us rose and Koji slid open the door.

My brother and I aren't part of the crowd that will panic and need to stay up most of the night training. Like he said, it is all basic review.

There shouldn't be any problems.

**Review please!**

**Hooray! The first chapter/prologue is complete! :D**

**I don't own Naruto.**


	3. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

I wouldn't consider myself an early riser, but the day you graduate from the academy is hardly a day you want to sleep in.

In my parents' room there's this huge, full-length mirror that my mom has had ever since she was a little girl. She got me a mirror that sticks to my wall a long time ago. To this day I'd never really used it, but today I took the extra minute to look myself up and down. It was a big day; a little reflection couldn't hurt.

I pinched the end of a strand of my jet black hair. Maybe in the Uchiha Clan it was custom to be taught how to contain your emotions, but my bright green eyes were sparkling with excitement.

The mirror went down to right below my knees, right where my dark blue pants cut off. My shuriken holster was in place and filled, ready for whatever the graduation test would entail.

My moment over, I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. Before leaving, however, I looked over my shoulder at the mirror once more. It now reflected the Uchiha crest on the back of my simple, black t-shirt.

Koji emerged from his room just as I came out of mine. He was dressed identically to me only his t-shirt was white. This had always been a little symbolic. Though my mother would never admit it, Koji had always been known as the 'good twin'.

My mother was all about loving all of her children equally, but I wasn't going to argue this point. I was the 'bad twin', especially when it was Koji I was being compared to. He was quieter, took criticism really well, and was obedient to a fault. I'm not saying these aren't desirable qualities, they just aren't qualities that _I _own, and that's that.

Koji didn't say a thing, but he smiled and nodded at me. In his own way this was showing excitement. I all but skipped down the stairs, which was pretty funny because I'm not a skipper.

I wasn't surprised to hear people up already. Mother and Father were most likely to stay up in their room a little longer now that Mom was pregnant again. (She liked to sleep later, and he liked to be by her side.)

When we walked into the kitchen four people were already surrounding the table.

"Hey, kids! Ready for graduation?"

Though Kakashi and Anko have always been Grandma and Grandpa, Shizuku has always been more of a cousin than an aunt. She inherited Anko's brown eyes and Kakashi's wild silver-gray hair. She tries to pull it back with a dull pink ribbon, but always misses more than a few strands.

She wears a turquoise blouse made of a silky, kimono-like fabric. It has a really low neckline that she covers with a mesh undershirt. She wears a tan skirt, similar to the one Grandma Anko wears in the old pictures, only Shizuku's is ruffly, and she wears shorts underneath. (Shorts that are too short to be visible, I might add.)

I mentioned once that she dressed a little slutty and she just laughed it off and told me it may be hard to understand because I was still a child. Here's where it may have been better if I'd had Koji's temper. I'm not sure what it was, but something just hit a wrong chord with me. Maybe it was the use of her so-much-older-than-you voice. (Honestly, the way she talks sometimes, you'd think she's my mother's age instead of just seven years older!) Maybe it was being accused of being childish by the most child-like adult I know.

Anyway, I snapped back something along the lines of, "Well, at least I'm not madly in love with my cousin!"

She looked genuinely hurt and then stormed away. She didn't speak to me for a week, but she forgave me without even receiving an apology. Shizuku always forgives everyone. I guess I can't say I blame Grandpa for worrying about her so much.

But, to her credit, she _is _a talented kunoichi. She's getting ready to take her test to become a jonin in November.

I'm pretty sure the only thing Shizuku really hates is her height. I wouldn't call her short, (She's taller than _me_!) but that's how she sees herself. She's had her shoes altered to that they're sort of like high-heels.

I'll admit, I find her a little annoying sometimes, but she and Koji get along pretty well. Maybe they balance each other out; Shizuku has enough pep for both of them.

"Ryo-chan was just telling me about the jonin instructors this year!" she continued on cheerfully.

I turned away so she wouldn't see my rolling my eyes. Shizuku is the only one who calls Ryoma 'Ryo-chan'.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw my second-oldest brother, Tora, jab her in the ribs. There went Shizuku-she shoots off her mouth even more than I do! But what interested me was Tora's motion. This obviously meant that we weren't supposed to know who the jonin teachers were this year.

Every year before my parents would discuss this. Though it was kept a bit quieter the years Kaki and Tora graduated it still came up. I realized that it hadn't been mentioned once this year.

I caught Koji's eye and he looked deep in thought as well. Was something special going on? I tried to go through the possible instructors in my mind. At least half the rookie nine from my parents' generation were ruled out because they all had children graduating this year.

Before I knew it, the conversation had changed direction, and Kaki and Tora were telling a story about their training session with Ryoma last night. (So that's where they'd disappeared to!)

I am constantly reminded how glad I am that I'm not my parents. Being one of the siblings makes it perfectly okay for me to play favorites. And out of all my brothers, Kaki is definitely my least favorite.

He's overambitious, (which, okay, that one's not such a bad quality to have) the kind of older sibling who adores the idea of being the oldest, and he crosses the line between confident and arrogant far too often for my liking.

Mother says he messes with me the most because I give him a reaction. Koji doesn't have that problem. Sometimes I think Kaki respects Koji more than he respects Tora (which drives Tora crazy) who's sort of like his second-in-command.

Though Hayate's will stick up at odd angles every now and then, Kaki's the only one of us so far who truly inherited our father's duck-butt hair. We hear from nearly _everybody _how much Kaki resembles our father at sixteen. I've seen the pictures. They do look remarkably alike, but Kaki's features are a little more pinched. Sometimes he'll get this wicked glint in his eyes; that's usually your cue to stay out of his way.

Tora is a lot sweeter than he'd like to admit. He and Kaki are only fifteen months apart. I'm not completely sure if that had anything to do with it, but Tora really looks up to Kaki. (Can't imagine why.) It has almost gotten to the point of hero-worship, and I'll admit, this may be why Tora and I aren't as close as we could be.

Tora grew his hair out, but it doesn't stick up at all like Dad's and Kaki's. In fact, it strongly resembles Mom's hair. It hangs down around his face. It's black, just like the rest of ours, and his eyes are more… open I guess I could say. He and Kaki both got the dull gray eyes that Uncle Itachi has. (Hayate's look more like Dad's)

Finishing my glance around the table, I saw Ryoma watching me. I swear he reads eyes or something! If you're up to something, or even just relatively deep in thought he'll know immediately. Do you know how hard it is to lie to a guy like that? He smiled and then turned his attention back to Kaki and Tora's tale. Though he may have turned back just to get another look at Shizuku. Shizuku may be in love with her cousin, but at least it's not one-sided. Perhaps the worst part is that he's played into the nickname thing. Ryoma is the only known person to call her Zuku-chan.

Ryoma is my only cousin related by blood. He's Uncle Itachi and Aunt Yugao's only son. He just turned eighteen, and he's kind of gained the reputation of being the Uchiha prodigy of this generation. His record hasn't topped Uncle Itachi's (I can't imagine anyone doing that!) but it's still pretty impressive. Ryoma graduated the academy at ten years old. He was a chunin by twelve and a jonin by fifteen. I hear the Anbu's been after him for a while, but so far he hasn't joined. I overheard him joking with Shizuku earlier that now he's finally got a legitimate reason to decline, but I couldn't hear what they were talking about.

I know Dad's relieved he isn't interested. I don't know why Ryoma being so good makes Dad nervous. You'd think he'd be proud that the first Uchiha born into what's become known as the Uchiha Clan's rebirthing period is so great. But, there are a lot of things that confuse me about Dad. Like why he won't tell us why the Uchiha Clan needed a rebirthing period to begin with. I've heard plenty about how great they used to be. So here's my question: If they were all such great ninja, what happened to them?

Before I could follow up on this thought there was a knock on the door. I sighed and went to answer the door. There weren't too many people likely to pay us a visit this early. I had a pretty good idea who it was.

I swung open the door and sure enough, there was Han Shiranui.

"What did you do _now?_" I asked.

He was holding his right arm and his face was scrunched up in pain. "What do you think?" he spat out.

His tough guy façade didn't last too much longer. The main reason for this being that I pulled on his injured arm to lead him into the kitchen.

His eyes widened and he let out a gasp of pain. I pushed him onto a stool, and Koji gently removed Han's fingers so they were no longer covering the burn. I wet a washcloth and tossed it over to him.

"This one doesn't look too bad," Koji said, dabbing at it. Each time the washcloth touched his skin, Han hissed in protest.

"I'll go see if Mom is up yet. If she isn't, you'll be the one facing her wrath," I told him.

But Dad reached the bottom of the staircase before I even got there. "Han is back again?" he asked, sounding a bit annoyed.

I nodded.

He let out a huff of frustration. "Is it bad enough to wake your mother?"

I was about to tell him that Koji seemed to have it under control when Mom appeared at the top of the stairs. "I'm awake. What's going on?"

"Our little walking bonfire is in the kitchen," Dad replied.

Though he often referred to Han like he was a nuisance, he also often referred to Han like he was one of their children. I got the feeling the person Dad really had a problem with was Genma, dumping his kid on us all the time instead of taking care of Han himself.

When we got back to the kitchen Shizuku and Ryoma had disappeared off to I-don't-even-want-to-know where. Kaki and Tora were tormenting Han with their eyes.

As aloof as he tries to act, Han is sort of a mess around people. He kind of tries to mimic the way Uncle Shikamaru acts. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a defense he has. I could never understand it, but Mom reminds me all the time that he doesn't have four brothers, and his dad isn't much of a people person either.

Personally, I think Han is probably pretty thrilled he doesn't have four brothers. Kaki and Tora scare the hell out of him. We were probably lucky he wasn't bursting into flames right then.

"Ow," Koji hissed. Maybe Han wasn't bursting into flames, but his skin had become too hot to touch.

Dad sent a warning gaze at my two older brothers and they scurried off. But not before Kaki had time to pat Han on the head, causing him to shudder.

Koji backed away and Mom took over. I think Mom actually enjoyed working on Genma's son. It's the perfect chance to get some practice in with cases that aren't exactly the usual. You see, Han's temperature runs four to five degrees higher than the average person.

Twelve years ago, Genma Shiranui was sent on a mission to Kirigakure. While there he had a one-night stand with a Kirigakure kunoichi who was working on the same case. Not too long after he returned to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Ten months later, that same kunoichi, Ryelle Tegou was her name, showed up and left Han with Genma. Genma didn't have a clue how to be a parent, which started twelve long years of Han being left with _us_.

Han has brown hair, like Genma, only longer and pulled back in a ponytail. His outfit is a replica of Uncle Shikamaru's in the pictures when he was our age. (Of all the people to chose to have as your role model…)

I watched as Mother patched him up for the millionth time. Han inherited a kekkei genkai from his unknown mother. His chakra can literally convert itself to fire. At the moment, you can see that he clearly can't control it. In fact, he can't even activate it at will. It activates through fear or anger… or if you startle him badly enough.

There was a time he was over, just after Kaki had activated his sharingan for the first time. We were in the backyard, and Dad had to go inside to check on Hayate who was just a baby at the time. Kaki, idiot that he is, decided to practice his genjutsu on Han.

We didn't know this at the time, but Han also has a sort of sixth sense for sensing/feeling chakra. His brain kind of couldn't comprehend the genjutsu, and he freaked. He got a killer headache and in his haste to escape it, managed to torch our tomato patch. To this day, the burns he got on that day have been record-breaking for him, and they were all over.

Kaki found it hilarious. Dad was pissed. (And not just because they were _his_ tomato plants.)

Ever since he's been scared of Kaki and just the sharingan in general.

"What were you doing to get this one?" Koji asked.

"I was training," Han answered.

We all looked at him like, And then what happened? It's common knowledge that Han can't activate the fire himself.

Han's cheeks tinged pink and he looked down. "I didn't know my dad was home," he mumbled.

Ah, that explained it. I couldn't imagine how Genma reacted to startling his son badly enough to activate his kekkei genkai. From what I've seen they're pretty awkward around each other.

Mom finished patching him up. We had to leave pretty soon, so Han decided to just walk to the academy with Koji and me.

There were actually quite a few people that I didn't expect to pass today's graduation test. Han wasn't one of them, and I have to admit, I kind of hoped we wouldn't end up on the same team.

"Good luck," Mom called out to us as we left. "And, Han, try to be careful."

As we were walking, Han regained his laid-back, couldn't-care-less-about-anything attitude. He casually observed the cloud formations overhead. This is how most of the kids at school know him, but I find it kind of ridiculous.

Maybe that sort of attitude is good for him, but it was just so hard to take him seriously. I gave his injured arm a good whack and he fluttered back into his pained, panicky state.

Koji gave me a look that clearly said, Behave.

I smiled like I was as oblivious as Shizuku and looked ahead. The graduation test was set up on a Friday so that the graduates could spend the weekend celebrating. On Monday we would all return to the academy to be put into three-man teams and assigned our jonin instructors.

Be careful, Mom had said. Ha! Knowing Han, we'd see him again before the weekend was over.

…

"Koichi-chan!"

Kit-chan found me nearly the second after the three of us walked through the gates. Kit-chan is my best friend, which seems to surprise a lot of people. Maybe it's because we're so different.

Her full name is SukoshiKitsune Uzumaki. (Yes, they put two capital letters in her first name.) She is Naruto Sensei's third child. (She has three sisters. Two older, one younger.) Her name literally translates to 'little fox'. Kit-chan finds this hilarious, but for some reason it really annoys her three sisters.

Kit-chan has long orange hair and the same sparkling blue eyes as her dad. She's the only one who got the bright orange hair.

Our dads find it terribly amusing that we get along so well. They have a picture of her grandma and my grandma when they were our age. Apparently they were good friends too. And we look almost just like them.

Kit is bright, open, and cheerful. Kit is a skipper. As a matter of fact she loves to skip. Everywhere.

Kit's Capri's and sandals are a lighter shade of blue and her shirt, which is ruffled at the color, is obnoxiously neon yellow.

We headed toward the entrance. There are two classes that will participate in the graduation exam. They split you into two different groups for the first half. Then you come inside, get to have lunch and they split you into two different groups. It's all unnecessarily complicated. I'm pretty sure it's to avoid cheating at all costs. Which is pretty stupid. You can't cheat on the important stuff.

This goes for everyone except Kit-chan. Halfway through you're supposed to switch which teacher is examining you. But because Kit's dad is one of them she'll have her own teacher right up till the end.

The way Dad explains it, Naruto Sensei spent so much time on his own personal training that he never got around to training his own genin team. At the end of this year the title of Hokage is going to be handed over to him in this huge ceremony. He's spent his last year teaching the students about to graduate at the academy.

Neither Dad nor Mom have trained a genin team either. The way it looks, that's never going to happen. Dad doesn't want to train a team if any of his own kids are still in the academy. He isn't eligible this year because Koji and I are graduating. Hayate starts school next year, and by the time his graduates the new baby will already have started. I don't even want to think that the chain of Uchiha kids could continue after that.

For the first split Han was in my half and Koji and Kit were in the other. Each group does something different and then we combine at the end for the jutsu testing. My group was brought outside to the training grounds. We were split in half once more. The first half took general fitness tests. Han and I were part of the group that stayed at the target practice range. I did okay. Targets aren't my forte. I could tell Han's arm was hurting him, but he didn't do any worse than me.

It's pretty easy to see how this works. It's all about balancing out. If there's something you're not so great at you have to do really well on another section of the test. I wasn't so great at target training, but I wasn't worried. We didn't say anything to each other, but neither was Han.

As expected, we both did really well on the fitness tests. Considering he was always injured, it was impressive how consistent Han's high scores on the fitness tests always were. I pushed myself today. I didn't know which of our scores was going to be the highest on this particular course, but it would be close.

We went into the building as the other group came out. Kit-chan winked as she passed me. Waiting on our desks was the first part of a two-part long written test. This I wasn't worried about. I only paused a couple times. It was all basics. Han was sitting across the room. When I looked up I saw that he was zipping along fairly quickly as well. Han's ambidextrous to some extent. He writes with one hand, and the other is his dominant hand for sparring. I'd always known he was good, but only as an afterthought. Now I figured he was as good a person to compete with than any.

We were the first two done.

Every student at lunch at the same time, and you were allowed to sit with whoever you wanted. Most students were going over every little detail of their test so far. Kit-chan and I were able to eat our lunch in peace. Both of us had had older siblings already take and pass the test, so nothing came as much of a surprise. Kit wasn't as good at the physical stuff as she could've been, but her aim was pretty good, and the written stuff was easy for her.

So instead of agonizing over the exam, I described my morning to her. She knew how often Han was over though the two of them didn't talk much.

At the end of my speech I sighed and said, "He is so out of control." My eyes had wandered across the cafeteria to where he was sitting. He was a point of interest in my mind, but honestly, I didn't think there was too much to him. As far as I was concerned I had him all figured out.

Kit-chan giggled when I was done. "Koichi-chan, you are so jealous of that boy."

It wasn't an accusation. She was just stating a fact. But my head snapped back around to stare at her. Sometimes I forgot just how much Kit sees. When you first meet her you think that everything goes right over her head, but the opposite was true.

I didn't deny it. I had to admit, it was true.

"It just drives me crazy," I muttered. "Here's this kid who has so much power and not a clue how to control or even activate it!"

"I'm sure you'll figure out how to activate your sharingan soon," she said.

Ah, there was the real sore spot. I wasn't past the average age of having it activated. Kaki didn't active his till his was thirteen, and Tora just activated his a year ago, but still.

I wondered how Kit took something so important so lightly. She was the only child in her family that hadn't inherited the Byakugan from the Hyuga side of her heritage.

The teachers called us all to order, signaling the end of break. We were into groups once more. This time Koji and Han were in one group, Kit and I were in the other.

We finished the second half of our written tests and were then directed back outside. Here's the part I know I bombed. The teamwork portion of the test. You'd switch partners every three minutes or so. The teachers would throw you into random, wild scenarios and throw a bunch of challenges your way. It was chaotic, and probably fun to some kids.

It wasn't the quick, on-your-feet thinking that got me. It was working with the other examinees. Even Kit-chan and I weren't clicking today.

As we all grouped back together inside to get ready for the final portion of the test I knew I was being watched. It wasn't because I'd suddenly done terribly on something. It was because I was an Uchiha. Uncle Itachi still holds the record high score for just about every single one of these tests.

We all stood in line outside the doors of one of the classrooms. This was where they would test you on your substitution and clone jutsu. I wasn't worried about this, but they did it alphabetically and the I was near the end of the line. It could have been worse. Kit-chan was the very last student to be tested.

…

Exactly one hour after Kit was tested the teachers posted the lists. We all swarmed toward it to check out where you were and who did better than you and who did worse.

Koji, Kit, Han, and I all seemed to reach the list at the same time to see who had graduated with the highest score. Top of the list…

Uchiha Koji.

I couldn't really complain about that. I turned to congratulate him, but Koji had already mixed back into the crowd.

Uchiha Koichi was listed as number eight. I guess I couldn't really complain about that either. It was still top ten.

Number seven… Shiranui Han.

Damn him. He beat me literally by a point and a half.

Kit wasn't in the top ten, but she was still in the top half of the list. Before Han and I could get into some long drawn-out discussion about placement, Kit let out a shriek of joy and grabbed me by the arm.

She dragged me through the crowd and out onto the front lawn. There were some parents waiting already. There were three people I knew wouldn't be there. Our parents never showed because we always held a smaller celebration at home. And Han's father hated crowds nearly as much as Han did.

Kit-chan ran across the lawn and did a cartwheel out of excitement before reaching her mother and her younger sister in the crowd.

Koji caught up to me then. He didn't seem overly pleased to have graduated top of his class. His smile was serene and content at best.

I didn't take the time to question this. I grabbed his hand, and we raced toward home.

**Review please! I don't own Naruto or Han or his mother. **

**However, I now own more than a handful of characters. ****J I know how long and boring the character descriptions can be, but there shouldn't be too many more… well, okay, there's still quite a few left.**

**For anyone interested in creating an OC, I have one of Kit-chan's team mates done, but I still need another. There aren't too many restrictions other than the OC needs to be male. We can go over the nit-picky details later. **

**Plus if anyone wants to create her two older sisters, that would be good too because the only one I really have planned out is her younger sister.**

**Or if you just have a character in mind that you'd like me to fit in somewhere… that's cool too.**

**Just in case anyone doesn't read the character reference chart, I'll say here that Han belongs to **_Elves are Overrated._

**Thank you for reading. J **


	4. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Not bragging, I'd just like to say that I was right. We did see Han again before the team assignments. In fact, he showed up the very next day. I get the feeling he was waiting until after our graduation celebration was over because he appeared at their doorstep just a minute after the last visitor left.

"Hey," I greeted when I opened the door. I looked him up and down, but he didn't appear to be hurt. It wasn't a first, but it was pretty rare. Han doesn't come over just to hang out.

"Hey," he responded. He didn't say anything else. He hadn't put up his act; he never does for us. But there _was _something different. His expression was neutral but not guarded. He even looked a bit innocent, though it was the type of innocent that accompanied not looking someone in the eye and pretending to be oblivious to things that they obviously got.

I stepped out onto the front step with him and closed the door behind me. "Do you want to sit out on the back porch?" I offered still not sure just what exactly he was doing here.

He shrugged like he hadn't just shown up randomly at my house. Like _I _had invited _him _over. "Yeah. Sure."

But when we were out on the back porch, looking out over the yard, he still wasn't saying anything. It wasn't the first time I'd wished for Koji in an awkward situation. I wasn't good at small talk.

"So…" I said finally. "What did your dad have to say about graduation?" Yes. I was desperate enough to bring his father into this conversation.

Now I could tell it was no accident. He definitely wasn't meeting my eyes. He shrugged.

"He didn't have anything to say?" I prodded.

"I don't think he knows yet," he mumbled.

"You don't think?" Kami, I was acting like an ass. But he was the one who'd showed up at _my _house and decided to play the guessing game.

Han looked down and began tracing the outline of a very generic-looking cloud with his pointer finger on the porch. "He's been away on a mission since Monday," he informed me.

I didn't know what to say to this. But I surprised myself by the anger that had filled my mind.

"Monday?" I asked in disbelief, sounding a bit edgy even to my ears. "You've been by yourself all week long?"

He shrugged. "No big deal."

"It is a big deal," I insisted. "You're his son. It's his job to take care of you!"

For the first time since he'd arrived he looked a little defensive. "I'm a big boy," he snapped. "I can take care of myself."

So why was he here? I wondered.

Han pushed himself off the porch and began to walk away, hand in his pockets. As he began walking across the yard he said over his shoulder, "I was going to ask you if you had any information about the jonin teachers, but I guess we'll find out on Monday."

I didn't answer. I just let him walk away. Maybe he'd wanted Koji there as much as I had. I wasn't the comforting type. I hardly expected Han to break down and cry, but as he walked away I entertained the thought that maybe his expression hadn't been so neutral. Maybe he'd looked a bit… sad. Maybe he'd needed someone else to reinforce that he could take care of himself.

Han and Genma didn't live on the near outskirts of the village like we did. Genma had lived in an apartment in the center of town before Han, and he hadn't moved out since he'd gotten Han. It was the type of home where you could be anybody's neighbor, but there were a fair few ninja families nearby. How many celebrations had Han had to listen to while alone in his apartment?

It was a sobering thought. But I wasn't about to run after him.

Instead I got up and walked back inside.

…

Monday morning Koji let me walk ahead on the way to the academy. He didn't question why I wanted to go ahead without him, and he even intercepted Kit-chan so I could slip into the academy alone.

We'd gotten there early so there were very few people out in the yard, and I didn't see anyone else in the school. (Kit-chan was only there early because, as a teacher, her dad had to be there early.)

I hurried to my classroom and swung open the door. I peeked my head in and saw Naruto Sensei behind his desk, looking through papers. Probably the teams. But that wasn't what was on my mind. (Though I hadn't managed to get any more information out of my parents.) I hurried down the middle aisle.

"Sensei!"

He looked up and smiled. "What can I do for you, Koichi-kun?"

"I had a question," she told him. Though my end of the conversation was going to come off a bit accusatory, I wasn't nervous. Naruto had been considered family for as long as I could remember.

"Really? That's strange, 'cause the graduation test was last week," he joked.

"You're going to be the Hokage pretty soon after this… How do they choose which jonin will go on which missions?"

He looked surprised, but it wasn't that I was looking far ahead. "Well, that really depends on the circumstances of each mission."

"But if that jonin will be away for a long time and they have a kid at home do you think it's a good idea to send them on that mission?" My eyes were piercing his. Or… that's what I was going for at least.

"Koichi-kun, do you know how many of the jonin in this village have children?"

"How many of them have just one with no spouse to look after that one when he's gone?"

Naruto sighed, running a hand through his hair. "If this is about Han, Genma volunteered for that mission."

I said nothing.

He put a hand on my shoulder. "Koichi-kun, I know Han's situation isn't easy, but it's not that simple to interpret either. You have to trust that the two are working things out in a way that works for the both of them."

He turned back to shuffling his papers, and I couldn't continue our conversation even if I'd wanted to. The first student (well, not counting me) had already arrived, and that student happened to be Han.

He paused for just a second when he saw me. I quickly strode up to a center desk in the back and sat down. After being so awful to him last night, the least I could do was make things a bit easier now. As expected Han chose a seat down front, away from me.

I didn't have too long to be bothered by this before Koji and Kit-chan came in. Each of them took a seat on one side of me. (Koji by the window, Kit by the aisle.) The room began to fill up.

I recognized just about everybody. Two classes had taken the exam. Now there was just one classroom full of people left. There was an air of excitement that was masked mostly by awkwardness. Though they were trying to be discreet about it, everybody kept glancing around, trying to figure out who would be on their three-man cell. Every time someone walked through the door everyone all but whipped around to stare.

Finally, everyone was here. The room quieted down immediately when Naruto Sensei cleared his throat. He gave us the expected speech about how your team could make or break you as a ninja. Then, _finally_, it was time for the team arrangement announcement.

Naruto cleared his throat again just to add to the suspense, as if the people in this class weren't fidgeting enough already.

"Team Eleven," he began. "Konjou Hikuro."

I scanned the room and picked him out of the crowd. Hikuro was sitting in the third row. There was another kid on the other side of the desk, but no one in the middle. I would have to guess that's how he wanted it. Hikuro had been in the other class, but I'd heard his name come up before while listening to my parents talk about how their day had gone. Well, his parents' names had come up anyway. I knew his father was a high-class Anbu guard, and his mother was a skilled tracker nin.

Personally, I'd never seen his skills. He was good enough to pass the test, (which wasn't saying much) and to me he resembled a samurai. (Which said nothing.) Hikuro had black hair, longer than mine, tied back with a dark purple string. He had pale skin and black eyes.

I'd asked Kit-chan about him once. She'd described him as being laid-back and alert at the same time, which is just such a _Kit _description. However, I could see what she'd meant. His posture hadn't changed in the slightest at hearing his name, but I would've bet anything his eyes were sharp and focused.

I know he prefers being alone, though to his credit I've never seen him act openly rude to anyone. I see him walking around the village or sitting up on the Fourth Hokage's statue more than I see him at school. He's one of the few that I'd really have no qualms about working with. One of the few… Which was why it was a bit of a shame that he'd been paired with Kit. In my eyes, Hikuro had always been a flexible person. He and Kit were both the type who could work with anyone if need be. I was not one of these people.

"Uzumaki SukoshiKitsune," Naruto didn't break his sentence, but he did glance up and smile at Kit who was beaming.

"And Ryokaru Kazuki," he ended.

Kazuki was down in the front row. He had been in my class, and I had to say I was a little glad we weren't on the same team. The problem was that Kazuki didn't care. About _anything._ He had light brown hair that was always falling into his eyes and sticking up in places. Sometimes I wondered if he bothered to brush it at all. His eyes were nearly the same color as his hair, and they always had this faraway look to them. He wore white shorts and a greenish brown t-shirt that would sometimes be worn inside out. His sandals were two different shades of blue, obviously not from the same pair. He rarely listened to anything _anyone _had to say, much less our teacher. I was a little surprised he'd taken the graduation exam at all, as I doubted it would have mattered to him if he'd failed. Han and Kazuki were careless in two different ways. Han had a bit of a dry personality. For him things got too troublesome to be of much importance. Kazuki had a different take on things. The way he saw it was that everything would always be good because nothing mattered. It drove me insane.

"Team Eleven will be led by Umino Iruka." Well, that settled it. The four were just a team full of people who could get along with anyone. It seemed a little unfair to the rest of us who surely weren't going to have as much luck.

"Team Twelve," Naruto began. "Uchiha Koji."

I glanced over at my brother who was watching Naruto very intently. He caught my eye for a second and flashed me a quick smile, then returned his gaze to the front of the room.

"Inuzuka Madoka."

I groaned inwardly. I've never really gotten along well with most of the girls in my class. I had to admit I was pleased that there would only be one kunoichi per team. But there were plenty of other girls that I would have preferred be with Koji. I would rather he be with Kit-chan even though they don't really get along on top of how awkward that could be. But Madoka was one of the last people I would have chosen.

She's the only daughter of Kiba and Ino who are both pretty annoying themselves. Madoka and I just have clashing personalities. She owns more pink articles of clothing than would fit in my closet. Her grasp on the basics is just firm enough so that she could pass, but that isn't saying anything. (In fact, she must have had the lowest score seeing as she was paired with Koji who had the highest.) Training isn't really her thing. I get the feeling she'd be more than happy to take over her grandmother's flower shop instead of becoming a ninja.

I've made it no secret that I'm not fond of her. Yet, she's over our house all the time. Actually we see all of the rookie nine from my parents' generation pretty frequently. They grew close over the years, but Grandpa Kakashi likes to point out that it wasn't always this way. Madoka can be a little slow to catch on to things. And she didn't inherit any of her parents' tempers though it may actually do _her _some good.

My mother and Aunt Ino have been best friends for a really long time. In fact, Mom is Madoka's godmother, which doesn't help my case any. Mother has always treated Madoka like she was her other daughter. It's kind of a joke really. Madoka doesn't fit into the Uchiha crowd at all, and she isn't really close to any of my brothers. Even Hayate isn't as tolerable of her as he is of just about the rest of the population. Of course… it doesn't help her any that she's had this ridiculous crush on Koji for as long as anyone can remember.

Madoka means flower. To me, that's what she resembles… She has dark brown eyes and long dark brown hair that's pulled back into a ponytail. Just like her mom, only Ino's juts away from her head, and Madoka's hair lies lifeless against her back.

I guess what really bothers me about Madoka, and the strongest point as to why she may not be the best ninja, is that she can't handle any form or even the slightest hint of confrontation. It drives me crazy. She backs down the second she hears anything threatening or even accusatory in your voice. Plus, she's the type of girl who giggles. I don't giggle.

"And Shiranui Han."

My eyes drifted down to the front row where Han sat. Maybe I wasn't too sure of Madoka, but Han and Koji would be a good pairing. I wasn't worried about the little spat we'd. In fact, I'd never really thought about it, but it occurred to me that Han and I fought an awful lot. I guess it was just how we communicated. But Han and Koji never argued. I got the feeling that Han had a lot of respect for Koji. Well, he respected my dad too, but Father also made him really uneasy.

"Team Twelve will be led by Nara Shikamaru."

Ha! What luck for Han! Though he'd never show it, I'd bet he was giddy right about now.

"Team Thirteen," he began. "Hyuga Teito."

My head snapped up at the name. No way... I searched the room and found him sitting directly across from Kit-chan. How could I have forgotten? There was one single thing about the jonin leaders that had been discussed in my house this year. Uncle Neji would have to hold off on training a team because his son had been approved to take the graduation exam a year early.

He was almost a replica of his dad when Neji was thirteen, only he was shorter, paler, and his faced always looked a bit pinched to me. Of course, I only ever saw him with that damn, arrogant smirk mucking up his features.

I supposed some of it came from not being able to avoid spoiling your kid a little if you only have one. (Teito's an only child.) But it's not like Neji and Tenten are horrible parents. No, it can't be all their fault. Teito's the one who taught me how awful it is to be good at everything.

Teito has exceptional control over his Byakugan. He always had; it's just a natural talent. He also had exceptional aim, which I'm sure came from having a weapons master for a mother. The problem is, Teito has always been viewed as exceptional, and no one's been afraid to tell him so.

He's so good at everything, so I can't see what makes him seem so bitter all the time. Long story short, we bring out the absolute worst in each other.

So who _wasn't_ surprised when the next name out of Uncle Naruto's mouth was: "Uchiha Koichi"?

I don't think I'd ever loathed that boy so much. I'd rather be _Madoka's_ team mate. And I'm sure it showed, but it didn't matter. His expression mirrored mine.

I swear I saw Naruto give me a sympathetic, what-can-you-do smile before he announced the last member of my three-man cell.

"And Aburame Shizu."

I found my last team mate down near the front too. I didn't know him too well. He didn't come around our place too often. This wasn't too unexplainable though. I'd met his dad a couple times; Shino seemed to be a hard person to get close too.

Shizu had the same black hair as his dad only his lay down flat and didn't look nearly as stiff. One thing I liked was that he didn't wear those ridiculous glasses that his dad and grandfather and nearly every man in the Aburame family wore. It made him seem... safer I guess. Like he didn't have anything to hide. His eyes were black, but they'd always seemed kind and welcoming, not beady like you'd expect from a person who worked with bugs all the time.

Also, he didn't wear a high-colored jacket. He wore a simple off-white t-shirt. He always seemed pretty relaxed too. Yes, he had a lot of acceptable qualities, but personally, he always seemed a bit soft to me.

However, I could probably get along quite well with Shizu. Especially if you were comparing this to how well I got along with Teito.

People all over the room were whispering. I could tell what they wanted to know. An Aburame, a Hyuga, and an Uchiha all on the same squad? We were like the power team.

_Yeah right_, I thought. I glanced over and swapped glares with Teito, further proving my own point. Despite any first appearances, we hadn't been put together with any advantages in mind. I'd heard my fair share of teamwork speeches. We were going to tear each other apart before we learned to work as a team. And to be honest, I wasn't so sure Shizu had the skills to live up to the Aburame reputation.

"Team Thirteen will be led by Uchiha Ryoma."

There was shocked silence all around. My mind had lost the ability to produce coherent thoughts. The shock was plain on Koji's face as well, and he usually does really well when it comes to covering up emotions.

Ryoma? Like as in my _cousin _Ryoma? Was that who we were talking about? That went against every rule I'd learned so far. So many people couldn't lead a genin team because they had family members graduating. When had there been a sudden lapse in the rules? Was this fact not glaringly obvious to the people who'd put the teams together?

But Naruto Sensei only acknowledged the chatter that had broken out enough to quiet them down. Honestly, I didn't hear the rest of the teams. My thoughts had only been temporarily silenced. Now they were so loud, they were drowning out everything else. Like Teito staring accusingly at me, like he expected I'd set this up so I could get some sort of special treatment. Or how Kit-chan kept trying to get my attention. Or the calculating look on my brother's face as he tried to decipher just what exactly was going on. Well, okay, obviously I didn't miss all of that, but I didn't have the brain capacity to go too deeply into any of that, and I didn't see past the back row.

We were told that we'd be meeting with our new teachers later in the afternoon after lunch. I'm positive both Kit and Koji had some insight to share with me, but I rushed out of the room as soon as we were dismissed. I'd heard the room I was to be in at exactly one-o-clock that afternoon. I needed to be alone and attempt to unjumble my thoughts.

Of course, not five minutes later I passed Han in the hallway. For a fraction of a second we both slowed our walk, and I could tell that he really wanted to say something to be. But he pushed himself forward, carrying through with his silence. A smile cracked my thoughtful expression, and I rolled my eyes. Just like I said, Han wouldn't stay upset too much longer. This argument was nothing compared to some of the ones we'd had in the past. Many of which revolved around times where he almost set _me _on fire while burning himself.

Apparently, I didn't get any worthwhile analytical skills passed down because by the time one rolled around I hadn't gotten anything figured out.

Ryoma was waiting for us. Thankfully, Shizu and Teito had gotten there first, so there were no awkward moments while I tried to figure out something to say to my cousin turned teacher.

Teito narrowed his eyes at me like I was late. I glanced at the clock. I may have been the last to arrive, but _I _was five minutes early.

I took my seat on top of one of the desks. I sat beside Shizu, but Teito made no move to join us and even attempt being friendly.

"Looks like we're all here," started Ryoma. It wasn't a tone I was used to. Though Ryoma thought of all of my brothers as his younger siblings, I knew he was particularly fond of me. Now I was his student, and his voice was detached and uncaring. "I suppose I should give you the details for your real test."

My ears perked up at this. There was another test? I'll admit I was a little nervous to hear what was on the line this time.

Before Ryoma could begin Shizu spoke up quietly, "Shouldn't we introduce ourselves first?"

I was surprised he'd interrupted him, but Teito answered before Ryoma could.

"What do you think this is, our first day at the academy?" he sneered. "In case you haven't noticed we aren't all six years old anymore."

Though it was a little harsh, I had to agree. It wasn't like the legal age meant nothing, but in the eyes of many graduating from the academy made us adults to some extent.

"If you don't pass my little test it won't matter how well you know each other."

I'll admit to a wild, hopeful fantasy at first hearing these words. I was hoping for the teams to get repicked, but I knew that this was serious. Something way worse than spending my life dealing with Teito would come from failing this test.

"What happens if we don't pass?" Teito asked in a guarded, wary voice.

"Then you've lost any chance of ever becoming a ninja." There was silence and Ryoma sounded a whole lot more cheerful as he ended out little meeting with, "See you tomorrow at nine."

**Review please!**

**I've decided not to copy Kakashi's bell test. I have something else in mind, let's just hope it doesn't fail spectacularly. ^^'**

**Send me your thoughts! I've loved all the reviews thus far. There were a lot of OCs introduced in this one, and some of them won't become important until later on.**

**I don't own Naruto! I don't even own all of the OCs. **


	5. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Ryoma walked out just a second after. I think Shizu and Teito were as shocked as I was because we sort of just sat there for another minute or so. Then, without saying a word to either of us, Teito got up and strode out of the room after my cousin.

I got up as well. I glanced back at Shizu, who I was surprised to see was watching me. Well, he if wanted to be a follower and wait to act, that wasn't my problem. I didn't want to take the chance that I would run into either Ryoma or Teito in the halls, so I unlatched one of the huge classroom windows and slipped out.

I'd figured we were the first team to be out of these little introductory meetings. But as I was making my way to the front gates across the lawn, Kit-chan caught up to me.

"So how was it?" she asked, running up and walking alongside me, matching my pace to hers.

"It was... weird," I concluded.

"I'd imagine," she responded knowingly. "I'm not sure how I'd feel about having one of my sisters were teaching me."

I may not have any sisters, but Kit-chan has three. Two are older, but one, Etsumi, will graduate from the academy next year. I knew Etsumi a little better than the other two. Only because, being just a year behind us, she was always around. She and Kit get along alright, I guess. They argue like any pair of sisters. From what I've seen, Etsumi doesn't really take to Kit-chan's light-heartedness.

"Anyway," she went on "Iruka Sensei seems pretty nice. I can tell he's already worried about Kazuki, but he's trying to seem all detached. I wonder why."

But Kit-chan didn't wait for my thoughts on the subject. This is how a lot of our conversations go. I might as well not be there at all. I can't say it bothers me. If I want to share my thoughts she'll make space in the conversation. However, it's easier to just let her ramble than it is to try and have a truly two-sided conversation with her.

"He said he wanted to talk to my dad so I told Dad that I was coming home with you."

She knew as well as I that it wasn't necessary to ask if that was alright with _my_ parents. Kit-chan was practically family. Plus, she had a talent of being able to make herself at home no matter where she was. She wasn't the only one. Ryoma and Shizuku did so as well.

I grimaced at the thought. Maybe Ryoma wouldn't be so welcome anymore... I shook the thought away. His coldness this afternoon could be addressed later. Like when this test he was talking about was over and done with. I got the feeling that I wouldn't be seeing him until tomorrow morning.

"Let's go the long way," I suggested to Kit absentmindedly.

"Okay!" she chirped brightly before continuing on with her long, fast, one-sided conversation.

There were two ways to get to the Uchiha compound. One was straight through the village's many business and market districts. This way tended to take longer than necessary because of the crowds. (However, it took longer if I wasn't alone. There always seemed to be _somebody _who just _had _to talk to one of my parents or my older brothers.) Then you could cut around all this and go through the forest around to the back of my house. I preferred this route.

The forest was relaxing. There was another path I was familiar with. It would take you to a training place that my dad and Uncle Itachi had gone to when they were younger. My dad had showed all of us, but very few others knew the place even existed. As much as I loved Kit, I wouldn't take her back there.

Kit shut up very suddenly the second we set foot into my backyard. This made me apprehensive. Kit seems to have a natural talent for sensing a mood.

What was going on, I wondered? Usually, no one's home at this time. I was pretty sure Koji wasn't home yet. I wasn't sure if he'd even left the school yet. And besides, he isn't one to darken a mood.

Kit-chan brought a finger to her lips and we tiptoed closer to get within hearing distance. Neither of us could mask our chakra very well yet. Which meant, if Kit deduced the atmosphere correctly, (and I had faith in her) then whoever was inside was angry enough to not realize we were there.

"What was she thinking?" The voice was clipped and most definitely my father's. And he was pissed.

I looked at Kit and raised my eyebrows. She looked curious, and a bit grimmer than was normal.

I heard a sigh. Then Grandpa Kakashi voiced his opinion. "You're the one who isn't always so trustworthy of him. Lady Hokage is testing his loyalty."

This was getting more perplexing by the second. Whose loyalty was getting tested?

"Has old age driven her mad? There are other ways of testing one's loyalty. Ways that don't put my daughter's life on the line!"

It registered vaguely in the back of my mind that his use of the word 'my' meant my mother was not home. But there was a more pressing matter taking up space in my head. They were talking about Ryoma.

I knew he and Dad weren't the closest, but since when didn't Dad trust him? Since when didn't the Hokage trust him?

I was feeling very numb all of a sudden. Maybe there was more going on here than I'd realized. Kit-chan seemed to pick up on my mood, just as she'd picked up on Dad's. We began to back away slowly, silently.

Kit led me back through the woods and out into the market place. It was a silent walk. Not too surprisingly, Kit was the one to break the silence.

"I wonder what that was all about."

Surrounded by the bustle of the market place, the scene didn't seem quite so dark anymore.

"Kit-chan... Do you ever feel like people are... hiding things from us?"

She was thoughtful. "I'm not sure. I heard my mom talking to my dad the other day about how him becoming Hokage was, like, a dawn of a whole new generation."

"Because of the Kyuubi." That was no secret. People didn't speak of it as much now that Naruto was to become their Hokage, but I knew there were people who still didn't approve. My parents had brought us up knowing what Kit's dad held inside of him. They wanted to make sure we didn't find out on our own someday and end up hating him for it.

"Yeah. But I was thinking... what if the 'new generation' started before that?"

"What if it started with us?" She nodded. That had been her guess too.

"Maybe they aren't telling us stuff. It just makes me wonder, you know? I mean, I hear the adults going on all the time about how your worst experiences make you stronger. But what was so bad that they needed to put it all behind and not share it with their kids?"

"Kit..." I was about to voice one of my deepest concerns. The thought that had started all this worried wondering. I hadn't even shared this with Koji, but maybe it would help to have a new pair of eyes on the subject. "Kit, what do you think happened to the Uchiha Clan? I've heard all my life about how great they all used to be, so here's my question: If they were all so great, what happened to them? A whole clan doesn't just die out over night."

"That's a good question," she said. "And somehow I doubt it's something that you could just bring up over dinner one night. It's not just you though. Maybe everyone has something to hide about their past. Even my parents. I mean, my mom's the oldest of the Hyuga family's two heirs. So why is Aunt Hanabi the Head? Not that I'm not proud of being and Uzumaki, I just wonder. And what about Dad's parents and how the Kyuubi even got in him in the first place?"

I blew out a breath through my teeth. Apparently there were secrets all around. It sucked, but it was true.

"There's Shizuku," Kit-chan pointed out, trying to lighten the mood. "Now there's a mystery. Why don't she and Ryoma just get together already?"

I snorted. "Shizuku couldn't handle a relationship. Maybe she does love Ryoma, but she wouldn't deal with the commitment. I mean, she can't walk into the grocery store without checking out every guy in the vicinity."

"Don't you think that's kind of mean?" Kit-chan asked. "I mean, you make her out to be sort of a floozy." Like she didn't notice that Shizuku was very openly flirting with the waiter from the restaurant she was outside.

"Well," Kit said. She had regained the skip in her step. "If there's one thing I know about our parents' pasts it was that they had the best love triangle I know of."

Triangle? From what I'd heard it gained so many branches that they'd created their own shape, but I just rolled my eyes.

"Maybe _you_ don't think love is important," she started huffily. Then she stopped and got a devious glint in her eye. "Well, until Kovu comes around anyway."

I ignored this. I didn't look at her. And I was saved from answering by her inability to hold onto one thread of a conversation for more than a few seconds.

I smiled, and we began to stroll around the market place while she went on about how fate wasn't with her when it came to her love life, and how her two team mates weren't even crush-worthy.

I tried to think of what my team would be like if anyone had a crush on another member in my team. I shuddered. What a creepy alternate reality that would be...

...

Kit-chan and I walked around like that for a couple hours. After a while we were joined by Koji and Han. Apparently, Shikamaru had been away on a mission when the teams had been announced, and he'd only just gotten back.

"They probably could've planned that one out a little better," I commented. I was starting to think there were quite a few things they could have planned better.

Han shrugged. "It turns out he was working on the same mission as my father."

"I think my dad was talking about that the other day," Kit said thoughtfully. "The Hokage was over so they could go over a bunch of missions for when he takes over. They're trying to track down the remaining Akatsuki members."

The three of us looked at Kit-chan. It can be nice having a friend who always has inside information. And unlike a lot of other things, this was a tale that had been brought up by my parents.

"I didn't think they were still an actual organization anymore," said Han.

"They aren't as far as anyone in the Leaf knows," said Koji thoughtfully. "The group has been split up for a while, but they're still all S-ranked criminals."

"Dad said they never discovered the identities of all of them," I offered up, and Koji nodded.

"They keep a list of all the ones they know for certain are dead though," he said.

"My dad has one of those too!" Kit said. "Let's see… Hidan and Kakuzu… Sasori and Kisame… All four of them are dead."

"I read one of the reports that my dad left lying around from one of his missions," Han said. "According to their sources there were originally ten members before Orochimaru deserted. Then those four died. So there should only be five left to find."

I highly doubted Genma had just left that report 'lying around', but I decided to ignore that for now. "No, there was another one." I turned to Koji. "When our parents killed Sasori his partner got away. What was his name?"

"Deidara," Koji supplied. "Yeah, they haven't had much luck finding him yet."

"Well, well. Don't you four sound all grown up?"

We whirled around to find Kaki, his arm around his girlfriend, following us closely. Only Koji seemed unsurprised to see him.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Han jump a little. A grimace very much like my own was spreading across his face.

"Good morning, Nii-san!" Kit greeted brightly.

"Hello, Kitsune," he all but groaned. For some reason, Kaki is deeply annoyed by Kit-chan.

My eyes wandered over to the girl he had his arm around, Poppi. She was staring into space apathetically.

Poppi has long dark hair and somber brown eyes. Minus the depressing attitude I've heard she looks a lot like her father, Asuma Sarutobi. To be honest, Poppi annoys _me_ a little. Whenever she gets brought up my mother tells me to be patient with her. Kurenai, her mother, never really got over Poppi's father's death. Maybe it's a sad household, and Poppi's just absorbed the energy.

Poppi is just a few months older than Kaki. I'm pretty sure it came as a big surprise to everyone, even Mom and Dad, when she and Kaki actually got together. She's nothing like the previous girls Kaki has taken a liking to. The ones who all swoon over everything he does. I have to admit though, I would take Poppi over them any day.

"I've heard you're causing quite the up rise at home," Kaki mentioned to me.

"I don't pick the teams," I snapped at him. Considering how some of our conversations go, this could have been him trying to be friendly, but it just seems that every single thing he says makes me bristle.

He shrugged, like it didn't matter, it was still my fault.

We began to gravitate towards home. Han didn't join us. He mumbled something about welcoming his father home, then scurried off. Really, he just didn't want to spend any amount of time in the same room as my brother. I couldn't blame him. Even the open air of the market place wasn't too big to quell his ego.

Today had been a day of surprises, but one of the bigger ones came next. Poppi, quiet, never speaks unless spoken too (and sometimes not even then) Poppi, initiated conversation.

"I heard Uncle Shikamaru's your sensei," she said to Koji.

"Yes," he confirmed.

Poppi looked slightly troubled by this, but didn't say anything more.

When we got to our house Kit-chan stopped so I did too, but everyone else went on inside.

"What's up?" I asked her.

"Your dad isn't so mad anymore," she said. "I just don't think I'd be too welcome today." I couldn't argue. Even when everyone was happy, Kit was a bit… bubbly for our household.

"I can't imagine Poppi's presence will be a problem though."

Of course not. It would just be too easy to forget Poppi was even there. I sighed.

"You don't like her," Kit guessed with a small smile.

"She's okay. She's just always so depressing."

"You think so?" Kit appeared genuinely surprised.

"You don't?" I retorted.

"Not at all. She's a deep thinker, so she always worries at least a little. But I think she's really at peace with herself."

I could only stare for a moment. It struck me that no matter how much time I spent with Poppi I never would have seen that. I still didn't really, but I'd learned from past experiences that Kit-chan tended to judge people more correctly than I did.

We said our goodbyes, and then Kit turned for home. I took a second to steel myself for any possible coming confrontations, then stepped inside.

Koji had disappeared upstairs already, and neither of my parents, nor my uncle, aunt, or grandparents were anywhere to be seen. Tora was the only one in the room.

"Hey."

He grunted in response to my greeting. I knew why he was in such a foul mood. He always gets like this whenever Poppi's around. I think before she and Kaki got together he could at least console himself that the girls were all airheads and wouldn't be around for too long. I find it a little hilarious that he's so obviously jealous. I may be the one who's significantly younger, but I've never been so possessive of any of my older brothers' time.

As I walked up the stairs I saw that Kaki and Poppi were in the den, playing Shogi. This is what I find most interesting about Poppi. She doesn't seem to have any persuasive skills, (well, not any that I've seen) yet no one has ever been able to convince Kaki to play any sort of tactical board game before.

They wouldn't be playing more than two maybe three games. Kaki hates to lose.

…

I showed up at the training field at nine, just as Ryoma had requested. Teito and Shizu both arrived within seconds of me. We walked out onto the field together, and didn't say a word to each other for the ten minutes we waited for Ryoma to show up.

"Are you all ready?" he asked, appearing in front of us.

All three of us were suddenly alert.

"Okay, here are the details of your test." He pointed behind us, and we turned to face the edge of the forest. "Hidden somewhere in the forest is a little bright red box. Inside the box is a whistle. Whoever blows the whistle becomes a genin."

"That's it?" Teito asked suspiciously.

"Well, remember, you're competing against your team mates. And the two that lose get sent back to the academy so..."

I could see his point. That definitely put a spin on things. Not to mention that the forest was huge, and he hadn't given us any clues as to a general direction to head in. I bit the inside of my cheek. With Teito's Byakugan and Shizu's bugs, they both had a definite advantage over me.

"You've got an hour," concluded Ryoma. "Begin!"

The three of us took off in different directions. Since I had no clues as to where to start, I just began tearing through the forest, and I assumed Teito and Shizu were doing the same. After clearing a significant amount of distance from the forest's edge, I stopped to take a look around.

The morning had been foggy, and it was especially dark, surrounded by so many trees. Given the difficulties we would already have facing each other, I guessed it would be a pretty safe bet that Ryoma hadn't spent too much time hiding the prize.

I turned left, having come into the forest at a right angle, and started off towards the middle of the woods.

...

And roughly a half hour later, I'd had no luck. Every tree in this damn forest looked exactly the same. There was absolutely nothing to mark how far I'd traveled or where I'd been. Not to mention how hard it was to try and scout the ground and the branches above you at the same time for a tiny red box.

I rolled my eyes to the sky (which I couldn't see because it was blocked out by the tops of the trees), and it occurred to me that Ryoma had possibly set up this test knowing I was at a disadvantage. Damn him.

There was one way I could level the playing field... but just thinking about it made me feel like an idiot. There was no sure way to force your Sharingan to unlock itself. But I attempted to relax all my muscles anyway. I closed my eyes and tried to get in touch with myself, and with my surroundings... to no avail. Either the air truly _was _charged with chakra, or I was worse at this than I thought.

Oh well. I began to move again. I hated basing my victory on luck, but I didn't seem to have too much else to go on at the moment. I was sure the point was not to panic, but I was only too conscious of time slipping away. I pushed myself harder.

Just a second later I stopped abruptly, almost sending myself headfirst plummeting toward the ground. I froze behind the tree branch, but he didn't seem to have spotted me.

Up until now I hadn't seen a trace of either of the boys, but I'd just found Shizu. He was standing on his own tree branch, a few trees away from my own.

Silently and carefully, I slipped a kunai out of my pouch and wrapped a paper bomb around it. Then, not wasting a second, I sent it soaring towards him.

But Shizu looked up and knocked it away with a kunai of his own. The weapon exploded in the air as it was falling to the ground, bringing no harm to either of us.

I looked at him warily, wondering why he hadn't hurled it back at me. He was my enemy right now, but he didn't make a move to advance.

"You can come out. I'm not going to attack you." His voice carried just enough to reach my ears. I narrowed my eyes but stepped out into the open, just as he did.

I could see a swarm of his bugs, flying around his head. My hand itched to bring out another weapon, but I refrained. Besides, the beetles didn't seem quite fit for battle. They were flying around in and unorganized fashion, stopping and jerking back every once in a while.

I jumped over to his branch and stood a few feet away from him. Shizu didn't move. He wasn't even looking at me. He was carefully observing his beetles.

I watched as Shizu held out a hand, and some of the bugs closest to him made what looked to me to be a shaky landing. To be honest, they looked like they were a little high. But off of what I didn't know.

A troubled frown crossed his face. "Something's off," he told me.

I just looked at him, not sure if he was talking about the beetles or this whole freaking test.

He turned to face me. "The Aburame beetles have been trained and bred to be able to sense chakra. They feed off of it. We train in the Leaf Village's forests. They should be able to direct me through this forest with ease."

"So what's the problem?" I asked, still not fully trusting him.

"They can sense chakra everywhere. The air is humming with it." He looked up as if he'd be able to see the chakra in the air. "I found the box by complete accident, actually."

I was on full alert at his words. He pointed to the ground, and sure enough, there was the little red box, just sitting out in the open on the forest floor.

I was tense again. It had been below us all this time, before I'd gotten here, and he hadn't gone for it yet?

I took a deep breath. Calm down, I told myself. Focus on what he was saying before. Was there something off? If I lost my cool I could walk right into a trap. Suddenly, I got an idea.

"Wait here," I told him.

I took off for the tops of the trees. When I reached the top, I should be able to see the training field… but I never reached the top. No matter how long, or how high I climbed, the tops of the trees never appeared. I stopped and began to make my way back down towards Shizu.

"You're right." I was actually a little excited. The kind of excitement that comes from finding the answer to a puzzle. "We're stuck in a genjutsu."

He nodded. This made sense. I took another long look around. That meant Ryoma had sent the three of us into a trap… Which in turn meant that just about every rule of the test had changed.

Before I had a chance to think this over, or discuss any possible changes with Shizu, there was a disturbance. Shizu and I turned to find Teito advancing toward us. His eyes narrowed when he saw us so close to the prize.

It was clear that Teito wouldn't be listening to reason anytime soon. In fact, it was more likely that he would try to attack us before going for the box. I glanced over at Shizu. With his bugs all whacked out he wasn't exactly in top fighting condition. And Teito was getting closer by the second.

Without taking any more time to think I let my hands swiftly work their way through the familiar hand signs and then sent three fire balls down to collide with the ground in front of the box. They were tiny and pitiful compared to what I could have sent at him had I been using my full strength, but the point right now was to stop him, and he did stop.

Shizu and I leaped down so that we were standing on one side of the small box and Teito was standing at the other. Teito's expression had been twisted into one of fury. We wanted to reason with him, but I'm sure from his point of view it looked like we were double teaming him.

The second Shizu opened his mouth to speak Teito lunged at him. My fist connected with his ribs, sending him recovering back, but not before he'd managed to connect with Shizu, effectively shutting off the chakra flow to his right arm. Shizu winced and brought his left hand up to his shoulder, but it could take some time to fix the damage, and we didn't have a whole lot of that.

"Teito, we're not here to fight you." To his credit, Shizu sounded calm enough.

I knew only too well how panic-inducing having your chakra cut off could be. Teito and I had gotten into enough fights over the years through New Years parties and other gatherings. We usually only managed to get a few good hits in before one of the adults would break it up. As much as I hated him, the rumors were true. Teito was obnoxiously talented. He'd learned exactly where to hit someone in order to cut off chakra stream not just to that one point but to an entire section or limb. Just as he'd done to Shizu. I was itching to punch him in the face and get him back for last time, but I restrained myself. It wasn't the best way to make anybody listen to you.

"Really," Teito said sarcastically, not believing Shizu for a second.

"Come on, Teito," Shizu almost pleaded. I could tell he was trying to avoid another fight at all costs. But pleading wasn't the way to get what you wanted with Teito. "I know you can sense the chakra all around us. Can't you see something is off?" Unfortunately neither was playing up to his ego.

"Use your head, you moron!" I snapped at him. "Ryoma's trapped us in a genjutsu. And besides, since when are genin trained one on one? What makes you so special? Get off your damn high horse!"

I knew Shizu thought I was pushing it, but the only way to make Teito listen was to lay out the facts for him. I, myself, had not thought of that last point until it came shooting out of my mouth, but now that I thought about it, it did make sense.

It did stop him. "So what's your brilliant plan?" he spat out. He was still wary of us, but it did make sense after all.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But the second any one of us blows that whistle, we all lose."

"Well, we can't just stand around waiting for time to run out." This was also true. I frowned. There had to be some way to win this test! There seemed to be a wall blocking all of my thoughts. The only thing I could think of was that we could only have about ten minutes left. Wait a minute…

The two boys must have seen my eyes light up. "Listen," I spoke quickly "Whenever my grandfather does his training exercises with the ninja dogs, he calls them back at the end with a really loud whistle."

I touched my index finger to my thumb and placed it on my bottom teeth. "The little gap between your fingers makes it really loud. Like how the holes on a flute or some other instrument are where the instrument gets it's sound. It'll sound sort of like the sound a real whistle makes. If we all whistle, Ryoma will have no choice but to pass us all!"

Neither boy said anything for a few seconds, but I could see in their eyes that they understood this could be the only chance we had.

Three shrill, sharp whistles rang out through the illusion forest. Once the noise died down we all looked around at each other, nervousness showing on everyone's features. For a moment nothing happened. Then, slowly, the forest began to melt around us until we could see Ryoma standing in front of the three of us once more, smiling this time.

"Well done," he praised, and I felt a smile spread across my face. "You all pass."

Now there were smiles all around, but Ryoma wasn't done giving his little speech.

"The three of you all come from three of the Leaf Village's most prominent families. I'm sure you've all found over the years that more was expected of you than some of your fellow students. And you all _are_ naturally talented. But being naturally good at something tends to blind you from other things. In the ninja world it doesn't matter how talented you are if you don't have an ounce of common sense. And if you can't trust your team mates who can you trust?"

I got it now. He'd purposefully pitted us against each other to see if we could rise above the challenge. It hadn't ever really been about the whistle at all.

"You've passed this test, but this isn't the end," he warned. "None of you have judged each other properly. You're blinded by things like past arguments or undesirable traits to see what your team mates are truly capable. You don't trust each other."

I figured this was aimed mostly at me and Teito. Shizu didn't seem to have the same problems with trust. But I was proven wrong just a second later.

"Shizu, if you would be so kind as to return my whistle?"

Shizu pulled a gleaming white whistle from his pocket and dropped it into my cousin's outstretched hand.

"Thank you."

So he'd had the whistle all along! Which meant he hadn't trusted either of us to listen to reason… Maybe he wasn't as soft as I'd thought…

"You're all free to go home now. Our first mission starts tomorrow."

Teito and Shizu both lived in different directions, which left Ryoma and I to walk home with only each other's company.

"You know," he told me "there were actually a few different ways you could have passed the test. It was a simple genjutsu, but it would have taken all three of you to release it. If you had the whistle in your possession, but knew not to use it, that would have earned you a passing mark as well, but it's not the method I would have preferred."

"And the method we used?"

He smiled. He'd begun to look more like the Ryoma I knew. "Very interesting. I can appreciate the creativity."

I smiled too as we neared home.

**Review please! **

**How did I do with the test? Just to clear up any possible confusion, their whistling didn't release the genjutsu. Ryoma broke it when he realized what they'd done.**

**Kovu was mentioned briefly, but he doesn't have a character bio yet as he won't become important until later on. **


	6. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

We didn't start our first mission on Monday morning. The three of us showed up only to be redirected to the training field by Ryoma. When we asked what was going on (because both of the other genin teams were starting their missions today) all he would say was that there were certain things still under discussion for our team.

...

When I got home I found that Shikamaru had also given Koji's team a final test as well. His had been much more though out, (not too surprising, Shikamaru _was_ renowned as the best tactical genius the Leaf Village had ever had) but Koji, Han, and Madoka had passed their tests as well.

Dad welcomed us home with the news that Kit-chan too had taken a surprise final test and passed. Our three teams would make up the rookie nine. It was a pretty awesome feeling. Well... until I found out that the final test was only a surprise to us.

"Hey, congrats," Tora said on his way through the kitchen when he came home. "I heard you guys are officially genin. Like, for real this time."

"What do you mean?" I asked suspiciously. Koji didn't say anything, but he was listening intently for Tora's answer too.

So he went on to explain to us how every genin team had a final make-it-or-break-it test. It was how they narrowed down everyone who'd managed to pass. Because out in the real world, the basics could only get you so far.

"Each teacher does something different though," he said thoughtfully. "Grandpa Kakashi did something with bells..."

Before we could ask what his test had been we heard Kaki come home, Tora ditched us to go over some new technique he was working on with Kaki.

Throughout the whole night I could tell Dad was proud of us and happy for us, but he seemed tense at the same time. I doubted that he was unhappy that my team had passed, but I wondered if this just increased the tension for whatever problems he seemed to have with Ryoma.

...

Ryoma led the three of us back to the training grounds where he'd given us our test. Only this time he led us past the field and pretty deep into the forest.

"Today," he began "we'll be working on-"

"We?" Teito interrupted. "As in, all of us?"

"Well," Ryoma answered. "'We' as in the three of you."

Before he could continue Teito started in again, "Aren't you supposed to work with us one on one? We're supposed to be developing our individual skills. Considering we all have a different fighting style, it would be pretty hard for all of us to get better if you're trying to teach us the same way."

I glared at Teito. I knew why he was doing this. Our first lesson wasn't going like he'd expected, and he hated to be wrong. Shizu glanced nervously between him and Ryoma, but Ryoma was being surprisingly patient and good-hearted about Teito's rudeness.

"That is correct. But there are some skills that are crucial to every ninja." He paused a moment as if daring Teito to interrupt him again, but we remained quiet so he continued, "Like chakra control, for instance."

Teito looked like he'd just proven his point.

Without waiting for the next question, Ryoma formed the hand sign most commonly known and used for gathering chakra. After a moment or so (I was pretty sure he was exaggerating each step for our benefit) he separated his hands, and , cool as could be, he walked up to the nearest tree. But to our surprise he didn't stop there. Ryoma continued to walk up the side of the tree, using only his feet.

He got to a branch pretty high up there and called down to us, "If you can manage your chakra correctly this should be easy. Use your kunai knives to mark how far you can climb."

With new determination the three of us each stood before a different tree, all about the same height, and tried to replicate the show Ryoma had just put on.

I ignored the other two and tried to focus solely on my own training as I charged the tree for the first time. As I ran up the side, I could feel my feet sticking for a second before I took the next step. I didn't get very far before my foot broke through the bark of the tree. I quickly slashed a mark on the tree with my kunai knife before falling to the ground.

Just a second later, Shizu lost his grip on the tree and fell to the ground.

I could see what Ryoma meant now. If you put out too much chakra the tree wouldn't be able to hold you. If you didn't put out enough, it would repel you as if you hadn't applied any chakra at all. We had our work cut out for us.

Not even Teito got it on his first try, but on the second Shizu and I found him looking down at us from an incredibly tall branch, smirking smugly after we'd both fallen to the ground once more.

I must say this irked me quite a bit, but I managed not to glare or chuck a kunai at him. I took a deep breath and tried to focus back on my own training. Out of the corner of my eye I was aware of Shizu watching me as if expecting a reaction, but I ignored him and charged the tree once more.

…

"So, how was training?" Koji asked me as I walked into the house that night.

I wasn't the cleanest, and had worn myself out pretty well, considering that I didn't make too much progress, but I responded, "Pretty good" anyway. "How was your first mission?"

He shrugged. "D-ranks aren't all they're cracked up to be."

That kind of sucked, seeing as it was rare to hear about someone having a fantastically good time on a D-rank, but I'd still rather have been going out on my first mission than spending the whole day out in the forest with Teito. I hated his attitude, but even more I hated that he'd been right. He'd picked it up so easily… Had it been anyone else (Shizu for instance) it wouldn't have bothered me so much that he was better. Anyone else…

This must have shown on my face because Koji asked for details. My tree-climbing filled day seemed to interest him, but he had some insight for what was truly bothering me.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Ryoma was doing this _because _Teito would be better. He's testing you."

I understood what he meant. It was just like how I'd assumed that Ryoma had set up the test so that Shizu and Teito would have an advantage over me.

"Still," I said. "Isn't that a little dangerous, playing into Teito's ego? Always being good at everything could get him into some serious trouble."

"Yes…" he said haltingly. Koji very subtly glanced around us and then dragged me into the den where there was less of a chance of being overheard.

"Look," he said quietly "That's what everyone's so worried about. Dad thinks it was really irresponsible to test Ryoma by putting the lives of three genin in his hands. This especially causes problems because he's related to one of them. Even making things harder for you is showing favoritism in a way. He cares more about you than Shizu or Teito. He's putting more thought into helping you succeed than he is with the other two."

I raised my eyebrows. It made sense.

As Koji walked out of the room he said over his shoulder, "By the way, the reason Teito was in such a bad mood today probably has to do with the fact that he can see it too. He's used to nearly endless praise from his teachers. It's not that he doesn't deserve it, but your jonin instructor is the teacher who'll matter most in your life. And you've gotten into Ryoma's good graces without even having to try."

…

With Shizu and I working literally all day and pretty far into the night, we managed to successfully complete the exercise within the next four days.

And during these four days no answer had been reached as to why we still could not take missions like the rest of the genin teams. I'd gotten nearly the exact same response from Kit-chan- that they weren't that great, but it was one of those things where I wanted it so badly if only because I couldn't have it.

We would all shut up as soon as Ryoma arrived, (well, Shizu never participated in these very heated discussions anyway) but during the minutes we were left to only each other's company Teito would bring this topic up nearly every day. He made it very clear that he felt this was my fault, and that my very existence was causing all sorts of problems because Ryoma and I were related. In which I would bring up _every single day _that I did not put the teams together or assign the instructors for the teams.

However, I purposely left out the one piece of information I had that would have shed some light on the subject for them. I didn't tell them this was all some big test of loyalty for Ryoma. One, it felt like I would be betraying him somehow, (though I didn't even know why this test was needed) and two, it wasn't even brought up at home in my presence. The last thing I needed was Ryoma overhearing that I knew.

As the days wore on Dad seemed to be getting more and more tense which in turn would cause Mother to be in a worse mood than usual. And she didn't need anything setting her off. Not with all the insane hormonal stuff she was dealing with anyway.

This was one of the reasons that I was glad when Ryoma asked us to meet him early on the morning of the fifth day, away from the forest that had become even more familiar than the back of my hand. I needed something else to occupy my mind.

He didn't disappoint. The next trick he'd be teaching us was how to walk on water.

Unfortunately, this didn't manage to distract me completely. Mainly because it went very much like the last lesson.

Teito didn't manage to avoid getting completely soaked, but he picked it up much faster than Shizu and I did. However, this exercise gave me even less time to give any thoughts to his welfare. At least the water was softer than the ground… yet not nearly as dry.

…

"Ha ha!" I crowed, a smile taking over my face. "Look at this!"

Watching my feet I walked a few steps in each direction just to demonstrate. I was the last to get it, but I could now walk on the water.

"Very good," said Ryoma with a small smile. Shizu and Teito were both resting on the bank, Shizu just having accomplished this task today as well.

Before Ryoma could assign another challenge, a ninja descended from the trees. Upon closer inspection I realized it was Hikuro's father. Though he was an Anbu member he wasn't wearing his mask at the moment. (It wasn't in sight, and I was pretty sure he didn't have it with him, seeing as we weren't allowed to know which animal was his.) I was pretty sure with some assignments he got it was optional to wear it. Though I'm sure they could call upon him for this if needed, Yaseihi wasn't usually sent out on assassination missions. He guarded the Hokage and wasn't often seen in public.

I made my way back to solid ground, and the three of us watched as Yaseihi said something quietly in Ryoma's ear. Trained as he was, I didn't hear a word, but Ryoma responded with a curt nod, and Yaseihi disappeared.

Then Ryoma turned to us.

All he said was, "We've been summoned to the Hokage's office."

…

I looked around the Hokage's office for what was possibly the millionth time. Though it annoyed Tsunade-sama, Kit-chan loved to hang out here. And as her father was soon to be in charge, and Kit-chan just has a way of lightening the mood no one could really complain.

Ryoma hadn't said a single word on the way here. He looked tense. Even more so than Lady Tsunade. Despite being the one to call us here she didn't look happy at all to see us.

She entwined her fingers and laid her elbows on her desk, covering her mouth. And finally, she began to speak.

"As I'm sure you're all aware there have been a few problems with your group. It is clearly against the rules for one's team to be led or involved with a family member. I am currently looking for a replacement as we speak."

Shizu and Teito hadn't known Ryoma for nearly as long as I had, and I knew the dangers of having myself and Ryoma on the same team. Which is why I was slightly surprised at the uproar this brought.

"You can't do that!" Teito burst out indignantly.

"But what about our training?" Shizu looked horrified.

"You can't punish us for your mistake!" I shouted above the other two.

Ryoma stayed tensely silent, and the muscle above Tsunade-sama's eye began to twitch.

Teito glanced at Shizu and the two began trying to explain as quickly as possible all that they'd learned from Ryoma so far. I have to say I appreciated Teito's effort since, really, out of all of us he'd learned the least from Ryoma's lessons.

"_You _assigned the teams!" I repeated, trying to prove my point.

"That is _enough!_" Tsunade snapped finally.

We all fell silent.

"For your information, Ryoma leading your group was a test brought about by _your _father's concerns," she snapped, annoyed, at me.

I stayed quiet. To my surprise it was Teito who leaped to Ryoma's defense.

"And how do you decide whether or not he passes or fails? Whether _we _pass our test?"

Tsunade seemed to be slightly baffled by all the outrage she'd caused. And Teito had a point. What Ryoma was explaining to us suddenly made sense. In fact, on the inside I was even starting to feel a little giddy. Because _that_ was how we were going to win this argument! Coming from the prestigious families that we did, it would be totally reasonable to expect us all to be a little above the curve. So why couldn't we have passed Ryoma's test? He'd created it to be a fair challenge, and I guessed she would have had to approve it before he could set it into action.

The Hokage was a huge role, and the village would basically collapse if its people lost its respect for their leader. She really didn't have too many choices other than to give in. Not that she would let us think we'd won permanently.

She sighed, looking more annoyed than ever. "Fine. Ryoma will continue on as squad leader for Team 13. But keep in mind that you will all be evaluated later. You'll take on your first D-ranked mission tomorrow. That is all."

I think the quick victory (however temporary it was) came as a bit of a shock to all of us. Slowly, we all four rose to our feet and walked out of the room. I'm sure the shock must have hit Ryoma the most, but he wasn't showing it.

"What now?" Teito asked as we left the building. He said it almost defiantly as if he were daring Ryoma to question why he'd defended him.

"Now you go home, and get up tomorrow for your first D-rank mission," Ryoma instructed in the voice he saved for whenever he felt the question was painfully stupid.

…

I'm beginning to worry that my dad's tense mood will never end. As pleased as he is that I'm officially a genin and can now take on missions, I can tell he would have rather have had my team reassigned to another jonin like the Hokage had wanted.

Anyway, it turns out that D-ranked missions do suck just as much as everyone says. I can't help but wish we were back in the forest, learning something new from Ryoma, as I yank yet another kami-damned weed out of this old ladies' yard.

Now, don't get me wrong. The old lady seemed really sweet. Very grandmotherly. She offered for us all to take a break after the first couple of hours. She even brought out a try of drinks for everyone. (Even Ryoma, and let me tell you 'us' apparently does not extend to the jonin leader on D-ranked assignments. Ryoma said this was the type of thing that would make us stronger psychologically, but I wasn't fooled. The look on his face clearly said that he'd done his hours of grunt work, now was our turn.) But she's just the type that you know will never do anything with this yard after all our hard work. (No matter how many things she's mentioned that she _wants _to do.)

When we got here I couldn't see the problem. That's how bad it was. The yard was so covered in weeds, I thought it was grass. Now, as we're all on our hands and knees _still _pulling up weeds, the yard is made mostly of dirt. Personally, I think she could have saved us all the trouble; her yard looked better before.

…

I expected to have problems with Teito. However, it didn't take long before _both _of my team mates began to drive me crazy.

It didn't matter what we were doing that day. The problem was that Teito and I were spending hours at a time together. And it seemed that _every single mission _was the type of task that could only be accomplished quickly if we worked together.

Without fail, a day could not pass without Teito and I arguing about something. Usually, it wouldn't even have anything to do with what we were doing at the time.

I could already sense a favorite topic being Ryoma's test. Every little point, from any and every source of tension before the test started and our little fight before Shizu and I got through to him, has been debated. Heatedly. And in some cases, more than once.

"Come on! You shouldn't even be able to argue this time!" I snapped at him. "Life _would_ be better if I'd gotten to choose my own team mates. For all of us!"

Unfortunately, even the things I'd have thought we'd be able to agree on turn into a shouting match.

"Oh yeah." Teito's voice was sarcastic and venomous. "I'm sure you would have done _so _much better on that test had you been paired up with your bastard-child friend."

My eyes shot up from the pile of garbage I'd been making while we cleaned out the river. "Had Han been on our team we wouldn't have been in there for more than _five minutes,_" I hissed, my voice filled with hatred.

Now here's where Shizu should have spoken up with his opinions. Except he doesn't seem to have any. Most of our anger tends to be pointed at each other, but even if Teito and I had been openly insulting him, Shizu wouldn't have responded in any way.

Today he showed the most interest so far. He glanced up as I snapped back at Teito. I took this as an opening to include him.

"And you!" I shouted. "Why don't you _say something_? I mean, seriously, you only act when directed, you don't have any opinions about _anything; _Shizu, you hardly qualify as a human being!"

Shizu gave close to no reaction. He raised an eyebrow in what looked to be amusement, but he didn't have to react. Because Ryoma reacted for him.

"Will you knock it off, Koichi?" Ryoma was clearly not happy, and he so rarely raises his voice that we all turned to him in silence. "How old are you, five?"

And with that, the three of us turned silently (and sullenly in my case) back to work.

I remember when the life of the ninja used to seem glamorous.

**Review please!**

**Anonymous review who didn't like my story- (I'm going to know you from now on as review 14)- no worries. I'm not insulted in the least. Your review actually made me smile a little. Everyone's entitled to their own opinions and what's really stupid is expecting every person who reads your story to like it.**

**I mean, it's not like I'm going to discontinue this or anything. I have a lot of plans for the plot (Koji does become important in the future) but I'm not going to delete your review. (I don't believe in that) **

**I know you probably won't even read this chapter to get to this little note I'm writing to you, but I appreciate you sending me your thoughts, regardless of the fact that you don't like the story.**

**As a matter of fact… it makes me appreciate everyone who loves this story a little more. : ) Thanks anyway though.**

**There is just one point that I would like to argue… Common sense and many science classes on genetics… um, hello, aren't people **_**supposed **_**to look like their parents? There's a picture hanging up on my wall of my grandfather, and every time someone comes over they think it's my dad. I thought it was my dad when I first saw it.**

**For all of you that agree or think that your favorite character won't have their moment of importance or that the story will never pick up… relax. This is still the very beginning. Personally, I thought the Zabuza Arc was dead boring. That's just me. Unfortunately it takes time to get to the interesting stuff.**

**I don't own Naruto.**


	7. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

I sat down hard on the ground with a groan of frustration. Shizu was carefully observing the sun in a way that was all too obvious that he was trying to tell the hour in an effort to see how much time we had left. Teito was looking horribly cross. More so than usual. We all looked over as Ryoma sighed in a way that clearly stated that he wasn't any more pleased with our failure than we were.

It had only been five days, and I'd felt like I'd already experienced enough D-ranked missions to last me a lifetime. So it's understandable that when Ryoma sent in a request for a few days off of missions due to a need for some extra training lessons, I was ecstatic. However, after the first few hours, I quickly lost that feeling.

"Get up," Ryoma ordered in a weary tone.

Grumbling, I obeyed. Shizu tore his eyes away from the sun, looking like Ryoma had just crushed all his hopes and dreams in life. (Not like we were getting out of this anytime soon. I could've told him that it was probably only a little past noon.) Teito crossed his arms over his chest and schooled his look to be a stony one.

Here's how the new drill would work. Ryoma would send us all tearing off into the forest, (which I was beginning to despise more and more as the hours wore on) and that's when the games began.

The whistle has made its return.

Somewhere along the way Ryoma would hand off the whistle to one of us or keep it himself. Later on we would, not at all by accident, run into each other. (how he managed to set that up was a mystery to me.) The problem was that Ryoma had also sent shadow clones of himself, disguised as us, into the forest.

Not only did we have to be able to tell whether or not the person we encountered had the whistle, we had to be able to tell if they were really our team mate or not.

I think the actual point of this was something along the lines of behavioral analysis. The point was to know each other so well that if ever we run into the situation where someone is impersonating one of us, we'll know who our true team mate is.

Unfortunately, no one had picked up on it yet. There was a simple reason for this. It was frickin' hard.

Had he warned us like a week in advance that we'd need to know all of each other's little quirky habits, maybe it would have been a little easier. Unfortunately, as Ryoma had already pointed out, this would have defeated the whole point of the excersize.

Impatiently, I brushed my bangs away from my eyes as the three of us got ready to make our mad dash back into Ryoma's cruel game.

"Go!" His voice was soft and urgent. It was the kind of voice that suggested danger was approaching. I hated that tone, but it had become familiar.

For certain rounds of this excersize, my participation wasn't even needed. This time, however, I was barely past the forest's edge when I ran into trouble.

On reflex, I fell backwards and dropped down a few branches, narrowly avoiding Shizu, who'd come barreling at me, possibly in an attempt to knock me to the ground. I whirled around and sent a kunai whooshing past his left ear. He'd dodged just in time, dropping down to a branch on the tree beside the one I was on. He was now level with me.

As he got ready to attack once more, a strange thing happened. As I was watching him, something... clicked.

I recognized the way he was tensing. It was something he did whenever he believed that he was going into battle without a reason. I'd seen it during our test as well.

What I did next is most likely discouraged on all levels. I took a huge chance by relaxing my own fighting stance. Quite loudly I told him, "You don't have the whistle."

For a moment everything seemed to just... freeze. During this moment, not only did I doubt my own deduction, but I considered attacking him myself as opposed to waiting for Shizu to make the first move.

But there was no need. Slowly, several parts of the forest began to dissolve. Ryoma had trapped us all in a genjutsu again! No wonder Shizu had run into me so quickly.

When we saw Ryoma waiting for us he was smiling-something we hadn't seen much of for quite a while. Teito was close behind him, looking mildly confused.

"Congratulations," Ryoma told Shizu and I. "It looks like you're finally starting to get it."

He paused and took notice of a large bird soaring overhead. For a moment his eyes narrowed, but I didn't take much time to analyze this as his next words were, "I think that will be it for today's lesson. We can pick up here tomorrow."

As smiles took over our faces, Ryoma quickly excused himself from the forest. By the time we were all ready to split paths and go our own ways towards home he was nowhere to be seen.

As I made my way through the village, I tilted my face up to the sun in contentment. It was still only early afternoon. As I watched the clouds float by I noticed the large bird Ryoma had been watching during training make one final circle, then dip down to land near the Hokage's office.

I didn't have time to think that this was out of the ordinary because a second later I collided with something quite solid and much taller than I was. I stumbled backwards, but caught myself before I could fall. As I looked up the apology died on my lips. Then I wished it hadn't.

"Aunt Yugao," I greeted.

She gave me a stiff nod, obviously displeased with my manners. However, she seemed preoccupied by something, so she didn't mention it.

"Koichi." her voice was oddly detached. "Out of practice already?"

"Yes."

I got the feeling I would never understand my aunt. My mother was still having children every few years, yet she still found time to be away at the hospital more than many people thought was necessary. (She said it was to make up for the time she'd spend away from work with the new baby.)

However, while Aunt Yugao had no longer been qualified as an Anbu member once she'd had Ryoma, she rarely took any missions that were up to her status. She could be taking on far more complicated assignments, but she stuck to low-key, escort missions.

She never lost her strict, rules-are-rules, I'm-a-mother-first attitude, despite the fact that Ryoma has been able to take care of himself for years.

I can't say I'm overly fond of her, but I suppose it doesn't matter too much as I'm sure she'd say the same when it comes to me.

We said a few more words by way of polite small talk before I slipped past her and out of the market town.

I supposed our family was supposed to be really close because for now we're so small. Dad's looking forward to the generation after ours because with so many kids, he's bound to get tons of grandchildren. In turn they'll all have kids, and eventually the Uchiha Clan will be restored to its former glory. That's been Dad's goal since before Mom got pregnant with Kaki.

As I walked through our gate I heard noise from the backyard. Slowly and silently, I crept around to get a better look. As I peered around the side of the house, I was surprised to see that Dad was already home from work. He was sparring with Koji.

Koji had his kunai held out in front of him in a way that could be both offensive and defense, and easy to switch between the two if needed. At the moment he seemed to be on the defending half of this bout.

Watching for a few minutes, I could tell Dad was becoming quickly impatient with Koji's lack of aggressiveness. The look in Koji's eyes told me that it was not he who'd decided to have this little sparring session. I couldn't help feeling a pang of annoyance. Our father was always trying to get Koji to take more of an interest in the shinobi lifestyle. (Don't get me wrong; this is what Koji wants to do in life, he just always seems a little disinterested whenever Dad goes on one of his long speeches.) _I_ would gladly have sparred with him had Dad ever asked.

"Your brother's very talented."

I jumped. Uncle Itachi was standing behind me, watching the same scene, and I'm sure he picked up on all the same things.

I straightened up a little and nodded. "He is," I agreed.

"However," Itachi continued "he's a cautious fighter. That could be very costly later on."

Itachi observed in silence for another minute or so before he pushed off from the side of the house he was leaning against and just as silently slipped away. It wasn't long before I found myself following.

When I reached the front yard Itachi was nowhere to be seen. However, I wasn't without company.

Kit-chan appeared to be dragging Han through our front gate. She had a happy-go-lucky grin etched onto her face. One arm was laced through Han's. He was wearing a very I-am-not-amused sort of expression.

"Good afternoon, Koichi-chan!"

Well, if Dad and Koji didn't know Kit was here before I was sure they did now.

"Hey, Kit…" I said haltingly, not at all sure why she was here. "What's up?"

Now her eyes held a familiar mischievous glint. I was beginning to guess why Han wasn't exactly thrilled to be dragged into whatever Kit was scheming.

"Something very mysterious is going on," she intoned in a low trouble-starting voice.

"How so?" I asked slowly, taking a seat on the front porch. Han sat down beside me, and Kit nearly glided over the lawn to take a seat on my other side.

Now don't get me wrong. I love Kit. She's my best friend. And she can be really serious when she needs to be. However, Kit is also the type of person who starts spreading conspiracy theories for fun. I don't think she actually believes them herself. It's more wanting to see everybody else freak out than to actually want to figure out what's going on.

"Kit thinks something huge and important is going on just because all the jonin leaders have been called to the Hokage's office," Han told me impatiently. Kit frowned at him, clearly unpleased that he'd ruined her big reveal.

To be honest, it wasn't until that point that I realized that it couldn't be a coincidence that all three of the Rookie Nine teams had ended training early that day.

"Why did the Hokage want them?" I asked. Now Han frowned. It displeased _him _that I was taking such an interest, but my attentiveness seemed to give Kit some of her spirit back.

"That's the thing! Nobody knows!"

From the other side of me Han snorted. "Kit thinks someone's planning an attack on the village," he said in a voice that clearly stated how ridiculous he thought this was.

But as I thought more about it, my heart quickly began to plummet. Because it was much more likely that they were already beginning to plan for the Chunin Exams. Why did it have to be so soon? Underneath my certainty, I was fervently hoping I was wrong. If I was right the chances of Ryoma deciding to enter us this year were close to none.

Han didn't stay much longer. Kit-chan was babbling on about all the horrific things it could be, and he was getting more and more fed up at having been dragged along. Kit didn't stick around for too long after Han left.

As she exited the yard she called over her shoulder, "Don't drop your guard!"

It brought a small smile to my face, before I got up too and went inside.

…

A shrill piercing whistle broke through my dreams that night.

I sat bolt upright in bed and looked into the smirking face of my cousin.

My own face quickly twisted into some sort of glare. A quick glance at my clock revealed it to be 3 AM.

"Get dressed," Ryoma ordered.

"What for?" I moaned.

But he'd already started for my door. "I'll be downstairs."

With a sigh, I got up and did as he asked. Downstairs on the kitchen table I found that a bag had already been packed for me. A note had also been written for my parents. I didn't take the time to read what it said, but I was sure they wouldn't be overly pleased about it.

I grabbed the backpack off the table and hurried outside where Ryoma was indeed waiting for me.

"Are we going somewhere?" I asked not too kindly. But once again he didn't answer.

Instead I followed him across the village twice. First to wake Shizu, then to wake Teito. I have to say that I didn't think too much when we retrieved Shizu, however, I was alert enough to enjoy Teito's wake-up call.

The four of us were already through the village gates before Ryoma began to explain what was going on.

"We're headed for the Land of Birds," he told us in a voice I could tell he reserved only for missions.

At this point we were already leaping through the trees. His words made my ears perk up, as did Shizu and Teito's. I could tell they were thinking the same thing I was. Going to the Land of Birds was almost a full-day journey. What could a genin team possibly be doing that required arriving in the dead of the night?

"The feudal lord and lady, Lady Toki and Lord Chishima, are good friends of Naruto-san. We're going to keep an eye on Lady Toki for a while, just to give her peace of mind. There was an assassination attempt last night, but she doesn't know from who."

"The Hokage sent a genin team on an assassination mission?" Shizu sounded appalled.

Through the darkness I could just see Ryoma's frown. "It has yet to be ruled an assassination mission. At the moment it's only classified as a C-rank."

"How?" Teito's voice was both incredulous and suspicious.

"Lord Chishima doesn't seem to share Lady Toki's worries," Ryoma answered. "He made good work of smoothing the story over. According to Lord Chishima, Lady Toki's been under a lot of stress lately."

"So what?" I asked with a snort. "The Hokage believes that she may have _imagined _her assassination attempt?"

"Well," said Ryoma. "Until we get further instructions… just keep your eyes and ears open."

I shivered, remembering Kit's last words to me the night before. Maybe she wasn't so far off after all.

…

I opened my eyes again as sunlight filtered through the trees. It was probably only five or six in the morning. That meant I'd only been asleep for two or three hours. Wonderful.

We'd opted for sleeping on the edge of the forest, right outside the Land of Birds. (Mostly because upon further inspection all the huge, sprawling fields were covered in geese crap.) Besides, we were taught as shinobi never to leave ourselves exposed, out in the open.

As soon as Ryoma had roused the other two we started across the fields to meet with Lady Toki and Lord Chishima.

The Land of Birds was nice. Peaceful. To be honest it reminded me a lot of the Leaf Village just without ninja mulling about everywhere.

As we walked Teito filled us in on the mission Naruto and his parents had gone on so long ago. The mission that had allowed Lady Toki to take her throne. Teito seemed pleased to have both Shizu's and my full attention. He ended in a voice that would send shivers down one's spine.

"And to this day the mystery has never been solved. No one knows if it really was the ghost of Lord Sagi that they saw… come back to haunt the man who murdered him…"

Quietly, Shizu said, "It sounds more like he came back to protect his sister."

Teito frowned at him, but Ryoma just smiled, shushed us, and pushed the door to the feudal lord and lady's home open.

…

Toki and Chishima were nothing like I expected. I suppose it was because every story I'd ever heard of them had been from their glory days. Now they were both old, graying, and soft-spoken. They had the impeccable manners of royalty.

"It's so good to have you." Lady Toki brought a hand up to her chest and the two smiled, grateful.

While Ryoma went over the formalities with the two I quickly lost interest and began to observe my team mates. After a few minutes I noticed that Teito was watching Chishima very closely.

Interested, I too focused my gaze on the feudal lord of the Land of Birds. I noticed that, unlike Toki, when he smiled it didn't seem to reach his eyes. Something about our presence seemed to concern him.

Thankfully, it didn't take long before Ryoma was saying his goodbyes and Chishima was showing us to our rooms.

The second he was gone Ryoma told he had something left to check on, and the three of us all congregated in my room, speaking in low voices.

"Something's going on here," Teito began.

Shizu nodded. "Lord Chishima sure doesn't seem too pleased to see us." Ah, so he'd seen it too.

Under Teito's close gaze I saw him let his certainty falter. "Though… that could just be his reaction to us… we don't exactly look very intimidating…"

"No, you're right," I assured him.

Before I could continue the door swung open and Chishima was smiling down at us. The three of us immediately froze.

"Good to see you're all settled in." Was it just me or was his voice a little stiff? "Are you ready to go then?"

"Go where?" Teito asked suspiciously.

Chishima looked surprised. "Didn't your teacher tell you? The Land of Birds doesn't exactly have an abundance of ninja. So, one of the terms of your mission was for you three to help out here, doing what would count as D-ranked missions in your village. Your squad leader especially saw this as a fair arrangement as we don't know how long you'll be our guests."

That figured. Ryoma had been working us so hard lately… We couldn't expect something like a fairly low-key mission to give us a break.

With multiple suppressed sighs, we rose and followed Chishima into the heart of a market town in the Land of Birds.

It was strange realizing how much like home this was. I could easily confuse this with the marketplace in the Leaf Village. The only difference were there weren't ninja everywhere.

Chishima found our first client and then promptly excused himself. The client was a fairly plump woman. She looked distracted and quickly set us to our task after a hurried thanks.

Our mission was to round up her three rowdy sons (not one of them over the age of seven) and keep them occupied for the next hour or so.

Inside I groaned. If I wanted to babysit I could've stayed home. As soon as the woman was out of hearing distance, Teito voiced my thoughts.

"Babysitting!" he muttered in distaste. "This can't possibly count as a mission! Not even a D-ranked one."

Only Shizu seemed content with our assignment. He even had a smile on his face. "I don't see what the problem is. This should be our easiest mission yet! I much prefer this to wrangling weeds."

"I disagree," Teito mumbled as we set off to find the boys. "I'd much rather wrangle weeds than brats."

…

Teito needn't have worried. Shizu was so good at this all Teito and I had to do was sit back and watch, really. He brought them to a play set and commenced playing with them and basically brining out his inner child for the next hour until their mother showed up to take them home. Ryoma had showed up as well.

_How symbolic, _I thought sarcastically. There was woman was to bring her three kids home, and here Ryoma was to bring the three of us home.

"You were really good out there today," I genuinely complimented Shizu as we began to walk away.

He smiled sheepishly. "Thanks."

I was discovering a pattern. Teito seemed to be at his nastiest when watching someone else be complimented.

"Well isn't that _cute_," he sneered. "You're right, Koichi. There are some perks that come with being the village outcast." He practically spat out the last words at Shizu.

"Knock it off," Ryoma intervened firmly.

I have to say I was a little surprised. Yes, Teito was being horrible, but Ryoma rarely cut into our arguments.

Shizu, who didn't let too much affect him, had bowed his head in embarrassment. What was visible of his face was beet red.

"Whatever," Teito said hotly. He walked off, and no one made any attempt to stop him. If he wanted to go sulk so be it.

"I'm sorry he's such a jerk to you," I told Shizu. It was really more of a parting jibe at Teito, but Shizu took it as an attempt to cheer him up, so I wasn't about to point out that wasn't what I meant.

"It's fine," he said. "He's worse to you. At least he was accurate this time."

"What do you mean."

Shizu took a deep breath. "There's really only a few things you have to do to be seen as respectable in our village. Every family has their own set of rules and customs. Follow those and you're set.

"The Aburame family is like a balance. We are acknowledged for our unique ways of battle, but you don't see geniuses coming from our clan on a regular basis like you see in the Uchiha and the Hyuga.

"There are some strict ways of life though. For one, the women can marry whoever, but the men must marry a kunoichi, preferably a successful one. My dad fell in love with a storeowner's daughter. My mother has no trace of ninja background.

"Each family has just one child. That's always been how it worked. I think originally it was in order to be able to raise that one child to the best of his or her ability, ultimately giving them all the tools possible to shed a positive light on the clan. My mother isn't as… immune to shinobi life as the rest of the clan. She's very conscious of the mortality rate. Almost three years ago she panicked at the thought of me joining that world. And thus, Kemushi, my little sister, was born."

"That's dumb," I concluded. "Your clan looks down on your family just because of that?"

Shizu shrugged in a way that clearly stated that it didn't matter why the clan looked down on them because there wasn't really any way to change anything.

…

Teito returned for dinner but didn't say a word to either of us. I wasn't about to complain. I would just enjoy the silence while it lasted.

There were two other guests at the table. They didn't give their name, but they were ninja from the Hidden Stone. Apparently, Chishima had hired ninja of his own. They two were both grown men and looked much more intimidating than we did. I noticed Ryoma eying them with a very calculating look, but we all ate dinner under the pretense that there was nothing unusual about any of this.

It was later that night that Ryoma pulled me aside and confronted me about the events of the earlier afternoon.

We sat down on a porch that looked out over the sweeping hills that were currently bathed in moonlight.

"Koichi, I hope you're getting something from all this training."

I rolled my eyes. If he hoped I would suddenly 'see the light' and get all buddy-buddy with my team mates he was wrong. If I did find out anything I didn't know about Teito I was sure it wouldn't be anything that life changing.

"You have problems connecting with others," he continued. "A lot of areas that are gray for others are black and white for you."

I remained silent. What was he, my therapist now?

"I just don't want you to be caught in the dark if you ever suddenly see things differently. These are good lessons to learn just for ninja life in general."

"Funny," I muttered. "I was always taught there's no room for compassion in the shinobi lifestyle."

"It's more about motives than compassion," he said, ignoring my tone. "You have to be able to understand a person's motive before you can make a truly well-thought-out decision about anything."

"And you're telling me this because…?"

He smiled fondly at me. "Because you don't get it. You're naïve enough to assume that people can be the way they are just because. It doesn't click with you that Shizu's so eager to please everyone because nothing he does for his clan will ever be good enough. You never look past Teito's foul expression to see the reason behind all his bitterness."

"And let me guess; you just have all the answers?"

He smiled again. "Not all of them. But sleep on this: Teito can have anything he wants at home, but to the rest of his clan he's still the son of a side branch member and a ninja from a not-exactly-prominent family. And his parents don't exactly have all the time in the world to spare."

I sighed. "Thanks for the tip, but you should probably get out of here before someone reports you to the Hokage. I'm pretty sure this is against the rules."

Ryoma rose and walked back to his room. It wasn't long before I rose to leave as well. But my journey back was much more eventful.

I ran into my still-sullen team mate on the way back. He scowled at me as I went to pass him, and my temper flared. The truth of the matter was that I wasn't really the type to sleep on anything.

"Just because Mommy and Daddy don't have enough time to give you their full and undivided attention isn't any excuse to be such a royal jerk!" I spat at him.

His scowl intensified to a glare, but I swept past him before a real battle could start. However, I made sure my side of things was clear by giving my door a hearty slam.

…

In the morning Teito and I were still nowhere close to being on speaking terms, but that wasn't about to stop Ryoma from calling us together for an early-morning team meeting before breakfast.

"Here's the deal," he said. "I don't trust the way things are adding up around here. So we're all going to be watching this place carefully today. I have my own things to do today, so the three of you can split up the guard-watch duties yourself."

After a pretty brief decision everything was settled. Teito would be keeping an eye on the two thugs that Chishima had hired, Shizu would be with Lady Toki, and I would be watching Chishima himself. What Ryoma was doing was a mystery to us all, and he made no attempt to offer up this information.

Right after breakfast, I found Chishima on the porch Ryoma and I had had our discussion the night before. He had out painting supplies. He looked up when I came out onto the porch behind him. It was a very quick glance he gave me before returning to his painting. On his pad of paper was a picture of all the birds resting out on the hills.

Silently, I sat down, letting my legs hanging over the edge. Chishima paid me no heed for quite some time. Finally, he put down his paintbrush and asked, "Do you enjoy painting? I must say, I hadn't pegged you as the type to be able to sit still for any long amount of time."

Well, he was right there though I nodded all the time. I had no skill for it, but I had sat with Itachi while he painted before.

Chishima's tone was very different from the day before. He seemed very at peace right now. In fact, I'd consider him fairly genial.

We made small talk for quite some time until he made some excuse or other, packed up his supplies, and headed inside.

I tried to be as discreet as I could for the rest of the day. After all, I could be openly stalking Chishima. He seemed pretty innocent to me. The only notable thing being that as the day wore on he seemed to become more and more jumpy.

Teito, Shizu, and I had planned to meet up in my room after dinner to go over the day's events, but, surprise,surprise, only Shizu showed up.

Shizu said Toki had acted as normal as Chishima. He looked troubled about something, but I didn't have time to ask.

"Something's not right," he said. "I think Ryoma knows something that he's not sharing. We should probably keep an eye on him tonight as well, just in case." He paused for a moment then said, "I'll tell Teito."

"Leave him out of it for all I care," I told him ungenerously. No matter. I knew he'd tell him anyway.

…

Something wasn't sitting well with me either. Shizu and I were both up late. Even Teito joined us. We were rewarded for our efforts.

Around midnight, Teito hurried into my room where the meeting had never really ended and hissed, "Ryoma's not in his room!"

All of a sudden Shizu and I were on full alert.

A second later we were all looking around Ryoma's room for anything out of the ordinary. The air shifted and the three of us swung around.

The two foreign ninja had appeared. For a moment it was like everyone in the room was holding their breath.

Then one of the men swore under his breath, and the other began to unsheath his sword. By this time the three of us all had our kunai out, but we needn't have bothered.

Because there was Ryoma. Let me tell you, I've never seen two full-grown men knocked unconcious so quickly.

The three of us hadn't even had the time to unfreeze, and Ryoma was already looking down at what he'd done.

"Hmm," he said, sounding totally unconcerned. "This probably wasn't necessary… I'm sure they would have halted as soon as they were made aware of Chishima's death."

"Wai- What?"

"Chishima's dead?"

"What is going on?"

Ryoma sighed. "I suppose I should explain."

…

The morning of our departure was bright and clear. Understandably, Lady Toki was too devastated to see us off.

"I still can't believe it was Chishima all along…" I mumbled. "Why did he want to kill her. It seems so unlike him."

"Makes a lot of sense to me." Now that Teito was no longer in the dark he was once again calmly aloof. "He knew how to get at her mind. Her father was murdered by poison, that's how Chishima was trying to kill Toki."

"Sometimes, after a long time something will just… snap in someone," said Ryoma. He winked at me over the boys heads and mouthed one word: motives.

Inwardly, I rolled my eyes and groaned. Well, if that was all there was to it, it didn't seem all that important anymore.

"Well, in that case, what's really disappointing is what a waste of a mission that was," I said. "They could've just sent you," I told Ryoma.

He smiled and shrugged. "Sometimes you'll have missions like that. But they're important nonetheless. Just think of it as a field exercise on gathering information. If you two hadn't kept Toki and Chishima busy, I would have had a much harder time getting the information out of the servants I needed." And he left it at that.

As we walked back I noticed that Shizu was hanging back. I slowed to walk with him.

"What's wrong?"

He smiled sadly. "She knew all along," he said quietly. "She knew it was Chishima."

"So why didn't she do anything?" I asked, somewhat alarmed.

"She told me she's going to have his child. She found out yesterday."

My eyes widened. If anything, these were the things that confused me. All my life it had been drilled into my head that the people really weren't the important part of a mission. I wasn't so sure anymore.

Well, I was sure of one thing. Things were changing.

**Review please! **

**Sorry it took so long to get up. This is by far the longest chapter so far, but only so because this chapter was sort of like my Zabuza Arc, and I wanted to get it over with in one chapter.**

**I have one last thing to say. For all you Harvest Moon fans: there was one other thing that stalled me. I've started a new project with another author on this site-duckielover151. **

**It's a series of one-shots on Harvest Moon characters. I send the chapters I do to her email because the story is on her profile page. **

**Feel free to check it out if you get the chance.**

**I don't own Naruto!**


	8. Chapter Six

**Hello, world! I'd like to start this off by saying that a friend of mine's math teacher (you know her on the site as duckielover151) gave her class a riddle, and no one was able to figure it out. So if you have the answer, please PM me!**

**Anyway, here's the riddle:**

**A man comes to this woman's house to take a census of the neighborhood. The woman tells him she has three children.**

**The sum of their ages equals her house number. **

**The product of their ages equals 72.**

**The oldest child likes strawberries.**

**How old are her children? O.o…**

**Chapter Six**

My team and I had been home for three days when the bomb was dropped on us. But let me back up.

The previous two days had gone as normally as any other day at home had ever gone. And day #3 was starting out to be just like all the others.

Han and I were sitting around the kitchen table bright and early, Han with a new bandage wrapped around his ankle. The atmosphere was just so… relaxed even though we were arguing, if you could call it arguing.

"I'm just saying," said Han, half laughing, "that I think it can be counted as fact that women are just naturally more tempermental than men."

"Yeah right!" I scoffed. "Teito is the most tempermental person I know!"

"There are exceptions to every fact," Han said quickly. "And besides, Kit is the most tempermental person _I _know. Are you trying to tell me it's a coincidence that she grew up with three sisters?"

I didn't get a chance to respond because the next second Kaki walked into the kitchen. Way to kill the atmosphere.

"What are you two so cheery about?" he asked. "I'd've thought you'd be a bit more focused considering." I couldn't tell whether he was _trying_ to be a jerk or if he was just being Kaki.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded harshly. Han's mouth had become a thin line. He was watching me carefully. I could tell that Kaki loved seeing how nervous he made Han, and it just made me even angrier.

Kaki raised his eyebrows and a smile grew on his face like my words had just made his day infinitely better. "What? You don't know?"

"What are you talking about?" I repeated, slower, trying to make my voice sound as dangerous as I could.

"Uh, uh, uh…" he shook his head. "I'm not spoiling the surprise." He gave me one last nasty grin before he strode out of the room.

"There isn't really anything important," I grumbled to Han though really I wasn't so sure myself. "He's just doing it to be annoying," I added forcefully.

Han just shrugged, wanting to know that Kaki was well out of hearing distance before loosening up again.

I didn't pay it too much attention. I was remembering how Ryoma had seemed so distracted during training the past two days…

I rose as well. "I _totally_ have an answer to your question," I told Han. "But there's something I have to check out first."

He grinned, apparently sensing no further imminent danger. "Yeah, sure."

…

I was as calm, cool, and collected as I ever was when I left my house. (And while, admittedly, that's not always such an impressive thing, my appearance was something to be proud of that day.) However, as soon as I reached the gate, I began to run. I couldn't explain it, but I just felt like this wasn't some stupid, false-alarm, wild-goose chase set off by my eldest brother-and trust me, there's been a lot of those.

I found Ryoma at the training field, studying the sky intently. He turned, unconcerned when he heard me approach. Though he raised his eyes at the serioius, on-a-mission look in my eyes, he didn't address it. Not directly anyway.

"Koichi. You're early."

True. The three of us weren't supposed to show up for another hour, and that was assuming everyone was on time. Actually, it had been a bit of a gamble that Ryoma himself would be here.

I shifted on my feet, suddenly unsure of how I should word my question. I'd really never found a way to trick Ryoma, and I'd always thought it was generally best to be blunt anyway, but at the same time, it was sort of an awkward question to ask.

"Is there anything… going on… that I should know about?" is what finally came out of my mouth.

He smiled, and an emotion passed through his eyes too quickly for me to distinguish. "Who told you?" he asked quietly.

"Kaki," I replied truthfully.

He nodded sagely. "Figures."

I waited for him to say more, but he didn't. After the silence had dragged on for a considerably amount of time I began to get antsy. I went from bouncing on the balls of my feet to literally pacing wide circles around him. It's been known to happen when I have a lot on my mind.

Ryoma gave a small smile, like I was utterly amusing, but if the pacing bothered him he didn't say anything, therefore, I did not stop. **(A/N That was a hideous sentence…) **

Finally, Shizu and Teito did arrive, almost within seconds of them. I stopped walking, and restrained myself from pacing around them because Ryoma seemed perfectly fine with keeping me in the dark for a while yet. Teito and Shizu, who weren't waiting impatiently for news, were looking up expectantly at Ryoma, awaiting the details of our next mission.

Ryoma spared a glance at me, and, with a chuckle, decided to put an end to my torment.

"As some of you may have heard," he said, looking pointedly at me, "something very important is about to happen in this village." With all the grace of some of Kit's most dramatic tendencies, he finally made this big reveal. "In about a month's time, the Chunin Exams will be taking place here. Teams from around the world should be arriving within a few weeks, some of them earlier."

He was met with silence. I had stopped pacing to stare at him.

"The Chunin Exams?" said Teito as if to clarify.

"Already?" said Shizu. He looked a little put-out.

Ryoma nodded in response to both questions. I had to say, much of me agreed with Shizu. There was no way Ryoma would approve us for it yet. But we were in for our second surprise that day.

"Registration is coming up soon, and, unless something drastic occurs in the next few weeks, I plan on enrolling all three of you."

The effect was instananeous. Anyone would've thought we were back in the classroom. The three of us turned to each other, closer than we'd ever been, and began talking over each other like schoolchildren. Ryoma waited a full five minutes for it to sink in, then, at once the grimmer aspects seemed to hit us and we turned back to him, silent once more. Shizu looked apprehensive, Teito appeared suspicious as if there was something our sensei wasn't telling us, and my mind was racing a million miles an hour.

Finally Shizu cleared his throat. "Um… what about our mission today?"

"I have paperwork to fill out, but the three of you will be cleaning up an old man's yard."

Teito and I groaned in unison, and I suspected that Shizu groaned silently.

Ryoma gave us the old man's name, directions to his address, and the time we were expected to be there (not until much later in the afternoon) and left. Once gone, the three of us dispersed and none too slowly.

I planned on going straight back home and sharing the news with Han, but he wasn't there. Unfortunately, Koji was sitting at the table… with Madoka.

"Hey," I said, nodding to Koji and doing my best to ignore Madoka. "You're out early."

"Our mission isn't until this afternoon," he replied. "I was planning on coming here to help Han with his chakra control, but he wasn't here."

I nodded again. "I was looking for him, too."

"Popular guy." This quiet interjection came from Madoka, accompanied by a quiet giggle. I turned to her with a hard look, silently daring her to confess to implying something more in those two words, but she immediately folded into herself and I sighed. The flower wilted, I returned to the outside world with little more than a wave to my brother.

It was a nice day- something I hadn't taken the time to notice before. The kind of day where the sun was shining brightly, but it wasn't too hot. I found it even more pleasant as I walked under the shadows of the trees in the forest.

I'd ventured considerably deep into the woods when I felt just how charged with chakra the air was. I stepped around a particularly dense thicket of trees to come into view of the river… and the person standing in front of it.

"Han?"

Realizing how badly I'd startled him, I jumped back in time to see him accidentally torch a tree just inches from where I'd been standing.

"Oh," she said shakily when he saw it was me. "Hey, Koichi."

"Hey…" I hadn't noticed that he'd been wet before, but now the water was steaming off of his unusually hot skin. Before I could say anything else, he quickly mumbled something about training with Koji and dashed off through the forest.

I took a few steps forward and knelt down to study the pile of ashes he'd left behind. A thought struck me. Had Han been practicing water jutsu? That didn't seem to make much sense as his kekkei genkai dealt with fire… But then, his mother had been a Kirigakure kunoichi, and Genma's family didn't have any particular jutsu that they passed down. None that I'd ever heard of anyway.

I straightened up and slowly began to make my way back home. When I did arrive, I found that once again Han was not there. However, Koji and Madoka had moved out to the back porch. As I drew closer I saw that he had a wet cloth pressed to one arm, and she was fluttering around him anxiously. I sighed. Han may not be here, but he obviously had been.

"Welcome back, Koichi," Koji greeted.

"Han's gone already?"

Now it was his turn to sigh. "Yeah. Training didn't go so well. He was really jumpy today." He gave me a pointed look that silently added, _And I know you had something to do with it._

"He needs to learn how to control himself!" Madoka sounded as if she'd been personally hurt, and I looked up to see that she had tears in her eyes. "Doesn't he understand that he's hurting people?"

"It's not his fault!" I snapped in his defense, unnecessarily cross. She looked down and seemed to focus her attention back on my brother. Not wanting a conflict this early in the morning, I did so as well.

I peeled back the cloth to take a look at the raw, blistered skin on his arm. It did look worse than usual. Madoka looked on as I wrapped it up. She had her shaky hands outstretched as if she wanted to comfort him, but she kept pulling back as if she were afraid to hurt him further. I had to hand it to my brother- he couldn't exactly be having the time of his life right now, (I'm not really the best person to be handling injuries- I've been known to be a little rough) but his features didn't concede to the slightest amount of discomfort.

When I was finished he thanked me and rose, Madoka instantly at his side. "I'm going to go check on Han," he said as the two of them made their way out the gate.

I saw them out, content that _someone _was off to make sure that Han wasn't setting fire to the village, and went into the kitchen to wash the cloth and found my mother at the table, sipping tea.

"Morning," she said as I flipped on the sink.

"Feeling better?" I said by way of response.

"Much. Thank you. How's Koji?"

"He'll be fine." _He always is, _I thought.

My mother smiled a private smile. "Yes, I'm sure Madoka won't let any more harm befall him." At the look on my face she said, "You should give her more of a chance. She's really not so bad. Though I am surprised she didn't agree to having one of the Inuzuka's dogs accompany her… They can make great guards."

"Madoka's afraid of dogs, Mom." Along with everything else on the planet… "Besides, she doesn't need one. She does a good enough job of always being underneath everyone's feet herself."

She gave me a knowing look. "You know, honey, everyone's little circle of friends will be expanding now that you've been assigned your genin teams."

I groaned quietly. Leave it to my mother to jump to conclusions. "This has nothing to do with who Koji's choosing to spend his time with, Mother." My words were short and impatient but not cold. "I'll see you later; I have things to do." Really, I didn't have to be at our mission site for some time, but I strode out the door anyway.

I quickly found the house and circled the neighborhood a few times until Teito and Shizu arrived. Shuji-san was an older man with thinning white hair and kind eyes. Since his wife died eight months earlier, his yard had sort of fallen to ruin, and he'd hired us to set that straight while he attempted to get the rest of his life in order. Normally, I'm not one for sob stories or laziness, but there was something I liked about Shuji.

The boys took the yard while I opted for the old shed. I would have preferred Teito be locked away with all the gloom and memories, but I wasn't really in the mood for company.

The doors to the shed opened with a near-explosion of dust. I suppressed a coughing fit and looked around, my heart sinking. Everything in the shed was coated in multiple layers of dust. I wasn't too bothered by the prospect of getting dirty, (which was inevitable) but I wasn't too fond of inhaling dirt (which I feared was also inevitable). Shuji looked shamefully apologetic, but I pushed forward and dove into the first box of junk.

An hour later, I wasn't even halfway done. I peered out into the sunlit yard to see that my team mates looked equally dirty and exhausted as well as sweaty. But for them at least, this was forgotten momentarily due to the excitement- Shizu and Teito had unearthed a canoe.

I sighed and got back to work. Among old family wedding photos, I'd found various rocks that Shuji had collected back in his youth when he'd gone off to travel the world, a doll collection that had likely belonged to a daughter or granddaughter, and a family of mice which I left alone.

After another hour, the three of us were finally nearing the end of this not-so-little cleaning project. I had one box left. It was at the back and looked even dustier than all the other boxes I'd gone through today. However, I quickly found that the box held perhaps the most well-perserved items in the entire shed. The box was filled with stacks of laminated newspapers. There really wasn't a whole lot for me to do other than to take them all out and shake off the dust. I'd glance at the headlines and then restack them. It wasn't until I reached the very last paper that I caught a title that made me freeze.

My hands shook as I read the words across the top: **Uchiha Massacre**. It was at least a full minute before I was able to tear my eyes away from the heading in order to read the rest of the article. I read all the horrid details, but only one word truly stuck: prodigy. And sure enough, near the end of the page they finally mentioned the name of the man who'd caused all this death and destruction: Uchiha Itachi.

My mind was buzzing and my entire body was numb. Had I not been gripping the article so tightly, it probably would have slipped through my fingers. It came as a shock, but I was too stiff to jump when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

After a moment I looked up to see Ryoma standing behind me, his face expressionless but not in a harsh way. Slowly, I got to my feet and he gently led me outside where Shizu and Teito were waiting.

I didn't say a word to either of them, and if they saw something off in my face they didn't let on. Later, I would be grateful, but I didn't have a very high capacity for emotion at the moment.

"I'd say we're about done here," I heard Ryoma say.

"Yes. Thank you all very much. I've already sent your payment ahead to the Hokage."

My two team mates gave him words of appreciation, but I stayed silent.

After a moment, the old man said kindly, "You're welcome to keep that old paper if you'd like."

I looked up in surprise to find that I still had the paper clenched in my hand. "Oh… thank you."

We began to make our way home. I noticed vaguely that the sun was just starting to set. For a while we were all silent until, out of nowhere, Shizu asked, "Koichi-chan? Are you all right?"

I looked up and just stared at him before hurrying on ahead of my team. I'm not sure if either of the two would have come after me, (Shizu more likely) but I know Ryoma stopped them if they tried.

I raced through town and arrived home at record speed. I threw open the door to the kitchen to find both of my parents inside. The two looked completely baffled at my appearance- as if I hadn't lived in this house my whole life.

"Koichi, wha-"

"What the hell is this?" I asked, a sharp edge to my voice as I threw the newspaper article down on the table. They were silent, looking down at it just long enough for me to consider that I maybe didn't want to know the explanation to that question.

Before they could answer, I ran back out the door. I heard my mother call after me, but I ignored her. As I tore through the forest, it occurred to me that I was being very tempermental today, but I didn't care.

I stopped when I reached my father's old training spot, unsure whether I was panting from my sprint or from the mass chaos of my emotions, knocking around inside of me. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. This spot was where I usually came to clear my thoughts. It was the only true clearing that I knew of in this forest, but today something was off. It took only a moment for me to realize what it was: someone else was here.

Immediately, I tensed. I briefly considered the possibility that Koji had followed me, but I knew he would've made his presence known. I scanned the trees until I found that telltale glint of silver.

I whipped a kunai knife out of my pouch. "Who's there?" I called threateningly. Perhaps my anger was clouding my judgement, but I was _not _in the mood to be messed with today.

Taking his sweet time about it, the boy made his way around the tree until I could see him clearly. He had long, thick brown hair that was pulled into a ponytail, (reaching a little past his shoulder) a green tank top, blue jean-like pants, and brown eyes that were glinting along with his smirk. But what caught my attention most was the Sunagakure headband on his forehead.

I glared at the boy looking down on me. (Literally) He must have arrived for the Chunin exams. I wasn't sure what to expect, so I was a little startled when he lauched himself at me. I threw my kunai as I jumped out of the way, but he was too quick for me.

The wind swept past me as he did, much too strong to have been caused solely by his body. All the better for me. The hand signs were instananeous and then I sent a full-force fireball his way. It only grew bigger when it connected with the wind, but he dodged it.

My eyes widened when I realized that he was behind me. I'd never seen any genin move that fast. But I didn't have time to think, I didn't even have time to feel fear. For another gust of wind literally blew me over, knocking me into him and sending us both to the ground.

A second later there was a 'POP!' and smoke rushed out around me in all directions as the transformation jutsu broke. My eyes wide, I turned to look up into the face of the boy who was now gently bracing my shoulders with his hands.

A very familiar face…

**Review please!**

**Ugh, it's been so long since I updated! When I originally started this chapter, it had been around Thanksgiving… now school is almost out for the summer when, hopefully, I'll be able to update this more frequently and actually make some headway in the story.**

**I really appreciate anyone who's stuck with this!**


	9. Chapter Seven

**Once again, I have to apologize for the long wait, but there's another important announcement here. For the longest time, I've been going back and forth in my mind, trying to decide whether I want Koichi to tell the whole story. I've finally decided that you won't be getting the whole story if I don't swith to third person every once in a while. I'm going to try not to do so too often (attempting not to make it appear spastic) but that switch will be starting today. Just didn't want you to be confused.**

**Chapter Seven**

Frozen in place, my eyes met a pair of light brown ones that stared softly down into mine, if eyes can be considered soft. Reddish-brown hair framed a face that had recently lost its baby fat. His cheeks had squared off nicely since I'd last seen him, and his shoulders seemed wider, but that may have just been because the boy he'd been impersonating had had a somewhat slighter frame.

"Kovu…" I breathed, just barely having enough air to do even that.

"It's good to see you again, Koichi," he replied lightly, as if we had not just been locked in combat.

We both seemed to hear the tiniest rustle of the bushes behind us. Call us paranoid, but we were both quickly on our feet, Kovu helping me up in the most fluid motion I'd ever seen.

"Your father is coming," Kovu informed me quietly. Okay, so perhaps I was the only paranoid one. Kovu must have sensed his chakra signature. Which meant that Dad was probably not going to be expecting what he found. I was suddenly relieved that Kovu's arms were no longer around me…

Sure enough, just a few seconds later, my dad arrived at our little clearing.

"Koichi…" He'd clearly come looking for me. But his eyebrows raised in an unidentifiable expression when he saw the older boy beside me. Who was now standing a respectable distance away, of course.

Kovu bowed politely. "Good afternoon, Uchiha-san."

Father nodded to him, a little too coolly in my opinion. "Kovu. I wasn't aware you were in the village."

"I haven't been here long," Kovu replied calmly. "I'm accompanying my uncle and his team to attend the Chunin Exams."

"Oh? Why not come later with your father? Surely, the Kazekage will be here?" Dad was getting a little too coldly detached for my liking, but Kovu didn't miss a beat.

"I wanted to visit an old friend," he said with a small smile. My dad's eyes flickered to me, and Kovu didn't dare do anything friendly like put a hand on my shoulder. I couldn't say I blamed him. My father can be quite intimidating when he wants to be.

"Well, we should be getting back. You're welcome to join us, Kovu," he said pointedly, as if Kovu was going to do anything else.

"Thank you."

The walk back was characterized by dead silence. Kovu and I walked side by side, my dad only a little farther up ahead, but we weren't nearly close enough for even our hands to brush past each other. I wouldn't have dreamed of having it any different. Though my father never even glanced back once, I'm sure he knew exactly what was going on behind him.

As we neared the house, my thoughts strayed from our temporary companion and began to focus on how much I was dreading what I knew would come next. This feeling so out of character, that it even stopped me in my tracks for a minute. (No, not literally.) I knew perfectly well that I tended to rush ahead, regardless of the consequences. But, suddenly, I wasn't sure I wanted to have this conversation with my dad. I wasn't sure I wanted to know just what that old newspaper had been talking about. For perhaps the first time in my life, I truly wanted to just… let things lie as they were.

Okay, scratch that. As we actually arrived back home, I realized that almost the opposite was true. I was dying to discuss the subject with someone. Koji, Kit, even Han would do. Just not my father. I needed another opinion on the matter. Someone to bring my scrambled thoughts back down to earth. It was convenient for Kovu to have arrived, because I treasured the conversations that I had with him. He had a way of bringing everything into focus. For some reason, he always seemed to have more common sense than the rest of the world.

However, my regular confidant was Koji by habit, and I found myself wanting to talk to him even more so than Kovu. Yes, my twin brother was by all means my first choice, but it was with further disappointment that I discovered he wasn't home.

As this hit me, I realized that I'd been counting on Koji for one other thing. If there was one person who could get me out of having this dreaded conversation with dad _right now, _it was my brother. My preferred option left was the discuss the matter with Kovu, but it would take a major distraction for the two of us to be able to sneak away.

Luckily, I got one.

… **Pov Switch/Third Person…**

It's amazing what can be going on behind someone's eyes. It wasn't even that he was the type of person that everyone had a different impression of. Everyone looked at his eyes and thought they saw the exact same thing. In Koji's opinion, this was even worse.

They were all wrong. Not even his parents or his twin sister knew the real him.

The thought made him smile a wry, bittersweet smile. Koichi… She caused so much trouble. In turn, it almost _forced_ him to be the calm, subdued, obedient twin. _Someone _had to keep the peace. And, he wasn't sure just when it had happened, but it felt as if Kaki and Tora had been excluded from their little bubble a long time ago.

Nothing could make him say he didn't love his sister… Sometimes he just wished she could be a little more conscientious of the effect her actions had on other people.

On the other hand… she knew perfectly well who she was and made sure everyone else did as well. There was certainly something to be said for that. Especially in comparison with himself. Of course, that option had always been there for him. It just didn't seem a logical, realistic choice. Not when he'd gone this long and everyone thought they knew him. Especially not now, when they'd thrown yet another wrench in the works.

Koji grit his teeth and picked up the pace. He wasn't quite sure where he was going, he just needed to get out. Which is how this sunny afternoon happened to find him racing from branch to branch in the depths of one of Konoha's many forests. He needed to burn off his stress. He would make the painstaking journey back later.

Koji was pretty far out when he realized he was being followed. His features hardened, and he swore under his breath. He was pretty sure he knew who it was. He was cursing himself for his own carelessness. It wasn't like him. Perhaps there was a reason he allowed Koichi to be the one to act on emotion when he usually settled for the most logical route.

There was no point in trying to outrun his pursuer; he knew this. Yet he put on an extra burst of speed anyway. He was sick and tired of being the good twin. Why shouldn't he be allowed his spontaneous moments as well? If his sensei really wanted to talk to him so bad, he could track him down.

He wasn't much further away when Koji felt his entire body freeze up. He dragged his eyes down to see that his shadow had been connected to another. He grimaced. There was a reason he tended to think things through sooner rather than later. The younger twin didn't even try to resist. He stood there, obedient as he'd ever been, as he waited for Shikamaru to land beside him.

His sensei came down without even the slightest of sounds, and he had that irritated look of exasperation adorning his features. He sighed.

"How terribly troublesome… I knew there was a reason I didn't want to train a Genin team… But honestly? I'd expect Han or Madoka to resist. You I'd expected to come quietly."

"I'm sorry, sir." His tone was subdued and his eyes were downcast. The façade was back in place.

Shikamaru sighed again and brought a hand up to scratch the back of his head. "I'm not gonna bother beating around the bush… You have to know what I'm here to talk to you about."

"Sensei, do my parents-"

"No, I haven't told them anything. I haven't even brought this up with the Hokage yet. I wanted to hear what you had to say about this whole mess first, though I'm sure I'll catch heat for it later."

Koji almost smiled. That was his sensei, cynical to a fault.

"Please, Sensei… Don't withdraw me from the Chunin Exams."

"Troublesome…" Shikamaru muttered again, looking down thoughtfully. "I can't withdraw you without withdrawing the rest of my team as well, but there's really no reason to keep you in…" He opened his eyes and stared silently for a moment into his student's expectant expression.

"I know why you're doing this," Shikamaru said at last. "And you have to know how pointless it is. You're too smart not to see that."

Koji remained silent. Though he waited, a part of him recognized his teacher's tone. He knew he'd won.

"You can't protect your sister forever, you know." More silence. Then, "Fine. I'll keep you in. But I can't guarantee for how long. And you know we're going to have to have this conversation eventually."

Despite the circumstances, Koji allowed a small smile to cross his face. Granted it wasn't much, but he had time.

**Review please!**

**I don't own Naruto, and once again, I'm sorry for the wait.**

**Thank you to **_silvermoon5033 _**and **_maxridelover _**for reviewing the last one!**


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